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Does a Famous Economist Deserve Special Standards? A Critical Note on Adam Smith Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Salim Rashid
Salim Rashid
Affiliation:
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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Extract

Matters are not very much improved when we come to the historian who qualifies all this [oversimplification of Luther] by some such phrase as that “Luther, however, was of an essentially medieval cast of mind;” for this parenthetical homage to research is precisely the vice and the delusion of the whig historian.

Herbert Butterfield, The Whig Interpretation of History

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 11 , Issue 2 , Fall 1989 , pp. 190 - 209
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1989

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References

Whenever convenient, I have referred to Wood, J. C., ed., Adam Smith: Critical Assessments (London: Croom Helm, 1984). Hereafter referred to as ASCA. It is worth noting that, of the 150 articles in ASCA, most pay no attention to context.Google Scholar

1. Freudenthal, G.. Atom and Individual in the Age of Newton (Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1986).CrossRefGoogle ScholarMayr, O.. Authority, Liberty and Automatic Machinery (Johns Hopkins: Baltimore, 1986).Google ScholarSraffa, P., “The Laws of Returns under Competitive Conditions,” Economic Journal (1926), 535–536.CrossRefGoogle Scholar I have no way of knowing whether Sraffa would share my assessment of Smith. The parts in square brackets replace Sraffa's original words. I find the same literary device to have been used by one of Smith's earlier critics. Mickle, W. J., Lusiad (Oxford 1776, reprinted by Garland 1979, cxviii).Google Scholar

2. Lord, Lauderdale, An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth (London: 1804)Google Scholar; Dugald, Stewart, Lectures on Political Economy, vols. VIII and IX of Collected Works (Edinburg. 1859–1877)Google Scholar; Charles, Ganilh, An Inquiry into the Various Systems of Political Economy (London, 1836)Google Scholar, 2nd ed., Preface; John, Rae, Statement of Some New Principles on the Subject of Political Economy (Toronto; 1965). The only article in ASCA that is sharply critical of Smith, and makes particular reference to his borrowings, is F. K. Mann, “Adam Smith—the Heir and the Ancestor” (no. 39). So unused are modern scholars to criticism of this sort that the Editor's commentary (p. 137) completely ignores Mann's barbed assessment.Google Scholar

3. Rashid, S., “Economists and the Age of Chivalry,” Eighteenth Century Studies (Fall, 1986), 20, 1, 56–61.Google Scholar

4. McCulloch, J. R., The Literature of Political Economy (London 1845).Google Scholar

5. A Treatise on Political Economy (Philadelphia 1853), New American Edition by Biddle, C. C., Introduction, xxxviii.Google Scholar

Vaizey, J., Capitalism (London 1971), 50Google Scholar; West, E. G., Adam Smith (Indianapolis 1976)Google Scholar; “Examining the Effect of Interdependent Consumer Preferences on Economic Growth, or Re-Discovering Adam Smith and His Eighteenth-Century Contemporaries.” Southern Economic Journal (04 1978)Google Scholar, 937; “The Austrian Theory of Marginal Use and of Ordinal Marginal Utility,” Zeitschrift fur Nationalokonomi, (No. 3–4, 1977), 259. I have substituted a comma for a period in the quote in order to maintain continuity.Google Scholar

6. “Considerations in the lowering of Interest…,” reprinted in The Works of John Locke (London 1823) vol. V. 58–59.Google ScholarSchumpeter, J. A., History of Economic Analysis (London 1954), 300.Google Scholar

7. Cannan, E., A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution (London: 1894). v.Google Scholar

8. Smith, A., The Wealth of Nations (New York: Modern Library, 1936), edited by Cannan, E., xxi.Google Scholar

9. op. cit., xxxix.

10. ibid.

11. op. cit., xlix.

12. op. cit., liv.

13. op. cit., lv.

14. op. cit., 2–3.

15. “Adam Smith as an Economist” Economica (06 1926), Reprinted in ASCA (no. 55). 20.Google Scholar

16. op. cit., 20, 22.

17. Can it be that Smith is following the neo-classical literary tradition of imitation, so that the charge of borrowing is not really relevant? The only support for such a suggestion comes from Smith's known love of literature. As against it, we have to note Smith's explicit and combative assertion of his own originality on economic issues—hardly what one would expect from an imitator. Furthermore, Smith is seen to be much more careful with attributions in his Lectures and, more importantly, in the Theory of Moral Sentiments.Google Scholar

18. Cannan, op. cit., liii.

19. Fletcher, F.T.H., “The Influence of Montesquieu on English Economists,” Economic History (01 1934). 77–90.Google Scholar

20. op. cit., 85.

21. op. cit., 87.

22. op. cit., 78, 79.

23. “A Modern Theorists Vindication of Adam Smith,” American Economic Review (02 1977). 42–49 (emphasis added).Google Scholar

24. op. cit., 45.

25. Oswald's contribution was first revealed in Dugald Stewart's “An Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D.,” in The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart, X, (Edinburgh 1872).Google Scholar

26. Memoirs of Francis Horner (London, 1843), I, 164.Google Scholar

27. Both Skinner, A. S. and West, E. G. accept Samuelson's analysis. ASCA nos. 51 and 147 respectively.Google Scholar

28. Skinner, A. and Campbell, R. H., eds. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Oxford 1976).Google Scholar

29. “The Wealth of Nations,” Economic Inquiry (07 1977).Google Scholar

30. “An Adam Smith Renaissance anno 1976? The Bicentennary Output,” Journal of Economic Literature (03 1978), 56–83.Google Scholar

31. Letwin, W.. The Origins of Scientific Economics (London: Methuen 1963), 210.Google Scholar

32. Letwin. op. cit., 222–23.

33. op. cit., 221. 223.

34. Letwin even attempts to claim that the Wealth of Nations is written in perfectly logical order. Since generations of admirers, starting with Say, J. B., have complained about Smith's want of order, this heavy praise requires much explanation (pp. 226–27). I leave it to the reader to enjoy Letwin's attempt to persuade us that there is only an “apparent lack of clarity” in the Wealth of Nations.Google Scholar

35. op. cit., 227–28.

36. “Adam Smith and Laissez-Faire,” in Adam Smith 1776–1926 (Chicago 1928)Google Scholar, 116. For examples of scholars who have accepted Viner's analysis of this issue, see the pieces of Freeman (no. 27), Gray (no. 37), Samuels (no. 48) and Sobel (no. 52) in Wood, J.C., ed., Adam Smith: Critical Assessments (London: Croom Helm 1984).Google Scholar

37. Ibid, 117–118.

38. Ibid, 118.

39. Ibid, 126.

40. Ibid, 139.

41. Ibid, 150.

42. Ibid, 130, 137.

43. Campbell, and Skinner, , Editorial Introduction to the Wealth of Nations, op. cit., 54.Google Scholar

44. “Adam Smith and the Mercantile System,” in Essays on Adam Smith, Essays on Adam Smith, ed., Skinner, A. S. and Wilson, T. (Oxford 1975).Google Scholar

45. Coats, op. cit., 236.

46. op. cit., 221.

47. Recktenwald, op. cit., 67. This paragraph is taken from a section entitled “Current Corrections of Past Misunderstandings.” (!)

48. Coats, op. cit., 234.

49. op. cit., 236; citing Scott, , Adam Smith as Student and Professor (1937), (p. 114).Google Scholar

50. Introduction to Clark, W. E., Josiah Tucker, Economist (New York, 1901).Google Scholar

51. Heckscher, E., Mercantilism (London: Unwin, 1955)Google Scholar; Grampp, W. D., “The Liberal Elements in English Mercantilism,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (11 1952), 465–501CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Suivranta, B., The Theory of the Balance of Trade (New York: Kelley, 1967)Google Scholar; Viner, J., Studies in the Theory of International Trade (New York: Kelley, 1965).Google Scholar

52. Fay, C. R., “Adam Smith, American and the Doctrinal Defeat of the Mercantile System,” Quarterly Journal of Economics (1934), in ASCA No. 128, 47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

53. Joseph Schumpeter's claim that the Wealth of Nations did not contain even a “single” analytic idea that was new in principle has become notorious. As it stands, however, it has served only to set tongues wagging. Detailed parallel quotes are nowhere provided—even for Schumpeter's insistence that Smith's basic ideas followed the Natural Law doctrines of Grotius and Pufendorf. That Schumpeter's knowledge of mercantilist pamphlets was limited largely to those available in modern reprint (in 1943) also seems clear. Whether or not Schumpeter is correct (I believe he is largely correct), the reader has no way of deciding.Google Scholar

54. Bouling, K., “The Public Grants Economy,” in The Grants Economy and Collective Consumption (London: MacMillan 1982)Google Scholar, 12. There are several such passages in Professor Bouling's writings. Novak, M., Speaking to the Third World (American Enterprise Institute, 1983. Washington, D.C.)Google Scholar, 46. To those who share Dr. Novak's faith in religious values and in democracy this ignorance is all the more regrettable. Hirshliefer, J., Intermediate Microeconomics (New York: Prentice-Hall, 1980)Google Scholar, 2nd edition, 14. Stigler, G.. The Theory of Price (New York: MacMillan, 1987).Google Scholar 3. A trivial, but indicative, example of the failure to examine Adam Smith's context is provided by Bell, J. F. in “Adam Smith, Clubman Scottish Journal of Political Economy (06 1960)Google Scholar, in ASCA No. 10. Bell reports that Smith suggested the following question for discussion to the Select Society in 1754. “Whether a general naturalisation of foreign Protestantism would be advantageous to Britain.” Bell then wonders, “Since Smith never participated in religious discussions it is difficult to explain why this first topic was chosen” (p. 97). That a bill for naturalizing Foreign Protestants had been hotly debated in Parliament in 1751 (and a similar one for Jews in 1753) was apparently not considered. Indeed, Dugald Stewart refers to the question in these terms in his Memoir on William Robertson. Collected Works (Edinburg 1858). vol. 10. 204. Neglect of context led Bell to consider as a puzzle what should have been an error of transcription.Google Scholar

55. Gressel, Daniel L. in Manhattan Report on Economic Policy, vol. VI, no. 1Google Scholar, 12. T. Chotigeat, in a review of a collection of essays by Dasgupta, A. K., Southern Economic Journal (04 1985), 1256. Many other such instances can be provided. Not only do economists repeat such indefensible statements, but, as is to be expected, the habit spreads. Consider, for example, “Vector optimisation is an inherent part of economic equilibrium theory and as such it can be said to have been founded by Adam Smith in his treatise The Wealth of Nations in 1776.” There seems little point in identifying the author, who is an engineer.Google Scholar

56. A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution (London: Rivington 1895), vi. The parts in square brackets replace Cannan's original works.Google Scholar

This essay is part of a longer project on Adam Smith. I am grateful to Larry Neal, Murray Rothbard, A.S. Skinner, Bill Thweatt, Paul Uselding and Don Walker for comments on the project. All errors are mine.