The Equalizing Hand: Why Adam Smith Thought the Market Should Produce Wealth Without Steep Inequality

2013 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 1051-1070 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah Boucoyannis
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Building Blocks ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Distribution Of Wealth ◽  
Canonical Text ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Liberal Political Economy ◽  
Made In

That the market economy inevitably leads to inequality is widely accepted today, with disagreement confined to the desirability of redistributive action, its extent, and the role of government in the process. The canonical text of liberal political economy, Adam Smith'sWealth of Nations,is assumed even in the most progressive interpretations to accept inequality, rationalized as the inevitable trade-off for increasing prosperity compared to less developed but more equal economies. I argue instead that Smith's system, if fully implemented, would not allow steep inequalities to arise. In Smith, profits should be low and labor wages high, legislation in favor of the worker is “always just and equitable,” land should be distributed widely and evenly, inheritance laws liberalized, taxation can be high if it is equitable, and the science of the legislator is necessary to put the system in motion and keep it aligned. Market economies are made in Smith's system. Political theorists and economists have highlighted some of these points, but the counterfactual “what would the distribution of wealth be if all the building blocks were ever in place?” has not been posed. Doing so encourages us to question why steep inequality is accepted as a fact, instead of a pathology that the market economy was not supposed to generate in the first place.

scholarly journals HOW SHOULD WE RECONCILE SELF-REGARDING AND PRO-SOCIAL MOTIVATIONS? A RENAISSANCE OF “DAS ADAM SMITH PROBLEM”

2020 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
pp. 80-102
Author(s):  
Natalie Gold
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Crowding Out ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Intrinsic Motivations ◽  
Social Motivations ◽  
Motivation Crowding ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Selfish Agents

Abstract“Das Adam Smith Problem” is the name given by eighteenth-century German scholars to the question of how to reconcile the role of self-interest in the Wealth of Nations with Smith’s advocacy of sympathy in Theory of Moral Sentiments. As the discipline of economics developed, it focused on the interaction of selfish agents, pursuing their private interests. However, behavioral economists have rediscovered the existence and importance of multiple motivations, and a new Das Adam Smith Problem has arisen, of how to accommodate self-regarding and pro-social motivations in a single system. This question is particularly important because of evidence of motivation crowding, where paying people can backfire, with payments achieving the opposite effects of those intended. Psychologists have proposed a mechanism for the crowding out of “intrinsic motivations” for doing a task, when payment is used to incentivize effort. However, they argue that pro-social motivations are different from these intrinsic motivations, implying that crowding out of pro-social motivations requires a different mechanism. In this essay I present an answer to the new Das Adam Smith problem, proposing a mechanism that can underpin the crowding out of both pro-social and intrinsic motivations, whereby motivations are prompted by frames and motivation crowding is underpinned by the crowding out of frames. I explore some of the implications of this mechanism for research and policy.

scholarly journals What’s the problem, Mr. Smith? Shedding more light (than Heat) on Adam Smith’s view of man *

2018 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28
Author(s):  
Emmanoel de Oliveira Boff
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Economic Thought ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Impartial Spectator ◽  
Self Interest ◽  
Cast Doubt ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

Abstract Why has the “Adam Smith Problem” recently been discussed in the literature? Although most historians of economic thought regard the problem solved, these discussions cast doubt on this apparent solution. This article suggests that the “Adam Smith Problem” may originate from the concept of the human being developed by Smith in the “Theory of Moral Sentiments”: in this book, human beings can be understood as composed of an empirical and a (quasi) transcendental side, in the form of the impartial spectator. It is argued that it is the tension between these two parts which creates supposed inconsistencies between aspects of the “Theory of Moral Sentiments” and the “Wealth of Nations” like, for example, the role of sympathy and self-interest in each of these books.

“DISMEMBERING THE HUMAN CHARACTER”: ADAM FERGUSON’S CONCEPTION OF CORRUPTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (02) ◽  
pp. 54-72
Author(s):  
Samuel Fleischacker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Public Institutions ◽  
Public Realm ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
The Public ◽  
Liberal Perspective ◽  
Do So

Abstract:This essay lays out three kinds of corruption—personal, structural, and civic—stressing the differences among these phenomena. It then explores civic corruption via the work of the eighteenth-century Scottish thinker Adam Ferguson. Civic corruption occurs when the citizens of a republic lose interest in defending their shared institutions, and pursue their private wealth alone; avoiding it, according to Ferguson, requires placing limits on these private pursuits and getting citizens to participate in the public realm instead. By way of a comparison with Ferguson’s contemporary and friend Adam Smith—who agreed with Ferguson on many issues, although not on what was corrupting about the acquisition of wealth—the essay argues that Ferguson, for all his emphasis on participatory government, was a liberal, not a collectivist. With that in mind, the essay endorses many of Ferguson’s suggestions from a liberal perspective, and argues that, to preserve liberal republics, it is often necessary to expand what governments do, so as to maintain the commitment of citizens to their public institutions. This prescriptive implication brings out sharply how civic corruption differs from personal corruption, which may best be limited by shrinking the role of government, rather than expanding it.

The Herring Enlightenment: Adam Smith and the reform of British fishing subsidies, 1783–1799

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 600-619
Author(s):  
Alison Rieser
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Food Prices ◽  
Relative Role ◽  
The Public ◽  
Fishing Vessels ◽  
Parliamentary Debate ◽  
Public Subsidies ◽  
Fisheries Policy ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

In late eighteenth-century Britain, Adam Smith was the most influential thinker to offer advice on fisheries policy. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith argued that subsidized, offshore fishing vessels were being built to catch subsidies, not fish. He argued that the tonnage bounties, intended to promote an export trade in herring, had instead raised local food prices and destroyed the Scottish small-boat fishery. This article describes the parliamentary inquiries this criticism joined, including whether public subsidies could help to build a British fishery at an appropriate scale. Speculating on the relative role of politics, geography and Enlightenment thinking in the parliamentary debate, it concludes that the herring itself made the public subsidies system succeed. The ‘Grand Shoal’ known in earlier decades reassembled along the Scottish coasts, and catches by vessels of all sizes increased dramatically. When, by 1799, British herring catches equalled the Dutch fishery at its peak, the ‘fickle’ herring made Adam Smith’s experiment in fish policy and politics a success.

scholarly journals Peningkatan Pendapatan Daerah Berbasis Pada Usaha Mikro, Kecil, Dan Menengah

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jurnal ARISTO ◽  
Khairina Nainggolan ◽  
Yaqub Cikusi
Keyword(s):  
Regional Economy ◽  
Market Competition ◽  
New Product ◽  
Employment Opportunities ◽  
Role Of Government ◽  
Lack Of Information ◽  
Made In China ◽  
Micro Enterprises ◽  
Made In

The development of small and micro enterprises have a very important role in the development of the regional economy. it can be seen from the amount of employment opportunities provided by UMKM for the community. UMKM existence cannot be under timed, because UMKM have a proven able to with stand the economic crisis that occurred in Indonesia. However, in the development of UMKM cannot be separated from in habiting fact that hit existence of UMKM. Several classic problems that occur in UMKM is lack of capital in the developing the business, unhealthy market competition that still happening until now is the market competition with product made in china. Lack of information about the market network and still lack of innovation in creating new product-products. UMKM therefore very much require the role of government in the developing small and middlebusiness.

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