Doctrinal Contest III

2021 ◽  
pp. 199-218
Author(s):  
Ryan Walter
Keyword(s):  
Capital Allocation ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Abstract Theory ◽  
Causal Factors ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

This chapter completes the study of doctrinal contest between Malthus and Ricardo by considering their rival treatments of profits. Ricardo’s account gave a central role to his idea of the ‘natural wage’, in which he adapted Malthus’s arguments on population for his own purposes. Ricardo also completed his destruction of Smith’s arguments regarding capital allocation and the quasi-providential properties of the system of natural liberty, as expressed in Smith’s overly quoted notion of an ‘invisible hand’. Ricardo’s uncomprehending reading of Wealth of Nations combined with his doctrinal correction of Smith appears, in hindsight, to have been a toxic reception context for Smith’s work. Malthus responded to Ricardo’s account of profits by claiming to have bested him both theoretically and practically by keeping his analysis open to all causal factors and by being able to account for the relevant facts of Britain’s commercial history. Once again, Malthus targeted the hastiness of Ricardo the theorist in attempting to simplify what could not be simplified. In his response, Ricardo had few rhetorical resources with which to defend the legitimacy of abstract theory.

The Proper Context of Business

2019 ◽  
pp. 31-66
Author(s):  
James R. Otteson
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Local Knowledge ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Institutions ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Proper Context

Chapter 2 investigates the explanation Adam Smith gave in his famous Wealth of Nations (1776) for why some places are wealthier than others, and what political, economic, and other social institutions are required for increasing prosperity. The chapter discusses the conception of “justice,” as opposed to “beneficence,” that Smith offered The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), as well as Smith’s economizer, local knowledge, and invisible hand arguments from his Wealth of Nations that form the basis of his political economy. We look at the duties of government implied by Smithian political economy, including both what he argues government should do and what it should not do. We also look at empirical evidence to answer the question of whether Smith’s predictions on behalf of his recommendations have come true in the intervening centuries.

La struttura istituzionale della produzione *

1991 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 163-173
Author(s):  
Ronald H. Coase
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Transaction Costs ◽  
Market Economy ◽  
Government Regulation ◽  
Social Cost ◽  
Economic Planning ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Eastern European ◽  
Eastern European Countries ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Abstract During the two centuries following the publication of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations the economists’ main objective has been to improve his analysis and in particular his basic statement that government regulation and economic planning are not necessary for the functioning of an efficient economy, since the price system (the «invisible hand») can successfully coordinate the economy.However, the excessive attention to prices deviated research from other aspects of the economic system. Coase’s effort, through his articles on «The nature of the firm» (1937) and «The problem of social cost» (1960), was to introduce in the traditional economic theory some institutional elements. The contribution of the first article was essentially the introduction into economic analysis of transaction costs. In the second article it was shown that contracting in absence of transaction costs maximizes the wealth, quite apart from the assignment of property rights.The introduction of institutional elements can be very helpful for reforms in Eastern European countries, because market economy can only work through appropriate institutions.

AN ANATOMY OF CORRUPTION

2018 ◽  
Vol 35 (02) ◽  
pp. 1-11
Author(s):  
David Schmidtz
Keyword(s):  
Adam Smith ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
Social Arrangements ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Right ◽  
As If

Which social arrangements have a history of fostering progress and prosperity? One quick answer, falsely attributed to Adam Smith, holds that we are guided as if by an invisible hand to do what builds the wealth of nations. A more sober answer, closer to what Smith said and believed, is thatifthe right framework of rules—plus decent officiating—steers us away from buying and selling monopoly privilege and steers us toward being valuable to the people around us, we indeed will be part of the engine that drives human progress and the wealth of nations.

scholarly journals The Invisible Hand Made Visible: "The Birth-Mark"

1993 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 44-73
Author(s):  
Cindy Weinstein
Keyword(s):  
Market Economy ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Individual Agency ◽  
Authorial Identity ◽  
Industrial Labor ◽  
Aesthetic Ideology ◽  
Cultural Anxieties ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
A Site ◽  
The Invisible

Allegorical characters in Hawthorne's "The Birth-mark" function according to the logic of the market. Selves in this story are like territories that must continually be possessed and repossessed, and the birthmark becomes the site upon which characters fight one another for ownership, self-ownership, and identity. Aylmer views the circulations in Georgiana's bodily economy as signifying an independent self he wishes to control. The marked defines both the relations that characters have to each other and Hawthorne's own relation to his characters, especially Aylmer. Aylmer's desire to erase the birthmark figures his allegiance to the principles of the market economy, principles articulated in the famous invisible hand passage from Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. In contrast, the visibility of the birthmark functions as a sign of Hawthorne's literary labor and authorial identity. Hawthorne thus finds himself in the curious position of having created a character whose raison d'etre seems to be the erasure of Hawthorne's own identity. His competitive relation with Aylmer, however, is perfectly logical given that the competition of the market governs all relations in the story. Furthermore, the erasure of the birthmark needs to be read in the context of antebellum American aesthetic ideology. The literary taste that demanded the erasure of the signs of labor grew out of cultural anxieties about new forms of mechanized and specialized labor, and its perceived attack on individual agency. An aesthetic of invisible labor functioned to keep literature separate from the problematics of industrial labor and the developing market economy, and yet, in demanding that authorial agency remain absent, this aesthetic reproduced one of the most troublesome consequences of mechanized labor. Allegory in "The Birth-mark" is thus read as a site upon which authors and readers inscribe the changing relations between labor and identity.

Invisible Hand Arguments: Milton Friedman and Adam Smith

2007 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 103-117 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alistair M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Public Interest ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Motivation ◽  
Milton Friedman ◽  
Common Structure ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Invisible

The version of the invisible hand argument in Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments differs in important respects from the version in The Wealth of Nations. Both are different, in turn, from the version invoked by Milton Friedman in Free to Choose. However, all three have a common structure. Attention to this structure can help sharpen our sense of their essential thrust by highlighting the questions (about the nature of economic motivation, the structure of markets, and conceptions of the public interest) to which answers of certain kinds would have to be available for any of the versions to succeed.

Adam Smith

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric Schliesser
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Mary Wollstonecraft ◽  
Invisible Hand ◽  
Scottish Enlightenment ◽  
Isaac Newton ◽  
Single Argument ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Impact

This book treats Adam Smith as a systematic philosopher. Smith was a giant of the Scottish Enlightenment with polymath interests. The book explores Smith’s economics and ethics in light of his other commitments on the nature of knowledge, the theory of emotions, the theory of mind, his account of language, the nature of causation, and his views on methodology. It places Smith’s ideas in the context of a host of other philosophers, especially David Hume, Rousseau, and Isaac Newton; it draws on the reception of Smith’s ideas by Sophie de Grouchy, Mary Wollstonecraft, and other philosophers and economists to sketch the elements of and the detailed connections within Smith’s system. The book traces out Smith’s system and puts it in the context of his highly developed views on the norms that govern responsible speech. In particular, the book articulates Smith’s concerns with the impact of his public policy recommendations, especially on the least powerful in society. In so doing, the book offers new interpretations of Smith’s views on the invisible hand, Wealth of Nations, his treatment of virtue, the nature of freedom, the individual’s relationship to society, his account of the passions, the moral roles of religion, and his treatment of the role of mathematics in economics. While the book offers a single argument, it is organized in modular fashion and includes a helpful index; readers with a more focused interest in Smith’s achievements can skip ahead to the section of interest.

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