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SCHUMPETER’S ASSESSMENT OF ADAM SMITH AND THE WEALTH OF NATIONS: WHY HE GOT IT WRONG

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 September 2019

Andreas Ortmann Open the ORCID record for Andreas Ortmann [Opens in a new window] ,
Benoît Walraevens  and
David Baranowski
Andreas Ortmann
Affiliation:
UNSW Business School, University of New South Wales.
Benoît Walraevens
Affiliation:
University of Caen Normandie.
David Baranowski
Affiliation:
unaffiliated.
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Abstract

In his widely read and cited History of Economic Analysis (Schumpeter 1954), Joseph Alois Schumpeter dismissed Adam Smith’s Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith 1976a) in a blunt and often ad hominem manner. In fact, he even questioned Smith’s intellectual mettle. We argue that Schumpeter’s assessment might have resulted from his failure to appreciate the rhetorical structure of Smith’s masterpiece (and the highly political character of its Book V), a failure possibly due to Schumpeter’s not having access to student notes of Smith’s lectures on rhetoric that surfaced only after Schumpeter’s death. We argue that Schumpeter’s failure to appreciate the rhetorical structure of Smith’s masterpiece is a prominent example of the consequences of not taking into account Smith’s rhetorical strategies and principles when trying to understand the man and his oeuvre.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 41 , Issue 4 , December 2019 , pp. 531 - 551
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2019 

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Footnotes

We thank, without implicating, Hank Gemery, Geoffrey Harcourt, Gavin Kennedy, Stephen J. Meardon, and Spencer Pack for their insightful comments on earlier drafts of our manuscript. Thanks are also due to two referees for this journal who pushed us hard to make our argument clear. It shows.

References

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