Looking for (Economic) Growth in the Eighteenth Century

2018 ◽  
pp. 35-55
Author(s):  
Christian Marouby
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Historical Development ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Fundamental Principle ◽  
Stage Theory ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Biological Analogy ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

In the context of the book’s emphasis on “Systems of Life” in the social sciences in the eighteenth century, this chapter seeks to interrogate the conception of growth, an evidently biological analogy, in the work of two major founders of the discipline of economics, François Quesnay and Adam Smith. Taking its cue from a famous passage in the Wealth of Nations, the first part investigates the surprisingly discreet physiological conceptions in the non-medical writings of the theorist of physiocracy. While recognizing significant parallels between the biological and economic systems developed by Quesnay, particularly with regards to circulation, this first investigation fails to produce a model of economic growth based on physiological principles. The second part turns to the thought of Adam Smith himself, in which can be found not only an explicit analogy between physical health and that of the economy, but a clear conception of economic growth. But if it is tempting to find in Smith’s economics a system akin to that of life, a close examination of his theory of growth makes it even clearer than with Quesnay that its fundamental principle is not physiological, but sociological, grounded as it is in a stage theory of historical development.

scholarly journals Blackstone's Science of Legislation

1988 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 117-149 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lieberman
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
The North ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The Social ◽  
University Of Edinburgh ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Law And Legislation ◽  
The University

In 1795, Dugald Stewart, the professor of moral philosophy at the University of Edinburgh and reigning Athenian of the North, observed in a famous estimate of the career of Adam Smith that “the most celebrated works produced in the different countries of Europe during the last thirty years” had “aimed at the improvement of society” by “enlightening the policy of actual legislators.” Among such celebrated productions Stewart included the publications of François Quesnay, Anne-Robert Jacques Turgot, Pedro Campomanes, and Cesare Beccaria and, above all, the writings of Smith himself, whose Wealth of Nations “unquestionably” represented “the most comprehensive and perfect work that has yet appeared on the general principles of any branch of legislation.” One of the more striking achievements of recent scholarship on eighteenth-century social thought has been to make sense of this description of Smith's Inquiry and to enable us better to appreciate why Smith chose to describe his system of political economy as a contribution to the “science of a legislator.” In a cultural setting in which, as J. G. A. Pocock has put it, “jurisprudence” was “the social science of the eighteenth century,” law and legislation further featured, in J. H. Burns's formula, as “the great applied science among the sciences of man.” Moralists and jurists of the period, echoing earlier political conventions, may readily have acknowledged with Rousseau that “it would take gods to give men laws.” Nevertheless, even in Rousseau's program for perfecting “the conditions of civil association”—“men being taken as they are and laws as they might be”—a mortal “legislator” appeared plainly “necessary.”

scholarly journals The Revival of Protectionism in the Modern World: Case Study of Uzbekistan

2020 ◽  
pp. 17-23
Author(s):  
Regina Gaynulina
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Trade Liberalization ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Research Work ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
Geographic Region ◽  
Modern World ◽  
Government Interventions ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Since the publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, in which market-based economy free from government interventions was systematically defended, economics and philosophy have mostly parted ways, culminating in a clear distinction between how most economists and philosophers view the global economic order. Although it is now clear that trade liberalization, unlike protectionism, paves the way for economic development, many still argue that the countries are better off implementing protectionist measures. Even the developed countries today seem to slowly return protectionist policies, while the developing ones commonly employ them fully. In this research work, the author will analyze the recent trends in trade policymaking as well as conduct a case study of Uzbekistan to see what impact the decades of protectionism and recent trade-liberalization reforms made on the country’s economic growth. The aim of the work is to identify and reveal the features of new protectionism in the context of globalization of the world economy and the related contradictions and to provide recommendations for Uzbek authorities based on the empirical findings. There is a very limited number of researches made in the field of trade policy in Uzbekistan, therefore this work will contribute to both Uzbekistan and global scientific societies, as the case study can be used to improve the current situation in the country, as well as it can be applied to the countries of a similar economic background (precisely present at the same geographic region) for the same purposes. The hypothesis proposed for this research is: When the country implements high protectionist measures it faces lack of money inflow, which consequently leads to a slow-down in economic growth.

Justice and the Wealth of Nations I

2019 ◽  
pp. 183-200
Author(s):  
Dan Moller
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Political Economy ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Cultural Character ◽  
Global Institutions ◽  
Historical Phenomenon ◽  
Default Position ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

This chapter argues that recent economic growth represents a species-historical phenomenon that philosophers writing in political economy must not neglect, and one which raises difficult questions for critics of capitalism. It further argues that criticisms of capitalist-style economic systems are mistaken to focus on global poverty. For the most part, this poverty reflects the default position of nations that have not stumbled onto economic growth yet. Alternative accounts grounded in imperialism or imperfect global institutions neglect key structural facts about economic growth. These include its long-term development, its cross-cultural character, and its independence from the onset/ending of practices like imperialism and slavery. The causes of growth with these characteristics are unlikely to be morally suspect.

The Social Philosophy of Smith's “wealth of Nations”

Philosophy ◽  
1927 ◽  
Vol 2 (5) ◽  
pp. 39-51
Author(s):  
John Laird
Keyword(s):  
Moral Philosophy ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
Short Discussion ◽  
Philosophical Inquiry ◽  
Scientific Analysis ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Principles Of Law ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Historical Treatment

When Adam Smith, at the age of forty, resigned his professorship in Glasgow and devoted himself, after three years of travel, to the composition of his Wealth of Nations, he set himself to elaborate the sociological portion of his course on Moral Philosophy. Indeed, at the conclusion of his Moral Sentiments, written during the tenure of his professorship, he had promised “ another discourse ” on the “ general principles of law and government,” including a historical treatment and an account of “ police, revenue and arms.” To be sure, when the work appeared, it was not, in essentials, a continuation of the researches of Montesquieu, and had no authentic connection with Smith’s earlier treatise on morals, Instead, the bulk of it was a strict, and as we should say, a scientific (not a philosophical), inquiry into the origin and conditions of opulence in human communities. Nevertheless, it expounds and is even dominated by a certain social philosophy which is not too convincing when nakedly put. Smith's abiding fame, accordingly, rests more upon the strict scientific analysis of his book than upon its implicit philosophy. Still, the philosophy was there. It had, and it still has, influence. A short discussion of it, therefore, is likely to have something more than historical interest.

scholarly journals Business Ethics in Adam Smith’s works

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (6) ◽  
pp. 21-32
Author(s):  
Stefan Zabieglik
Keyword(s):  
Business Ethics ◽  
Common Good ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Moral Sentiments ◽  
Ethical Problems ◽  
The Social ◽  
Property Owners ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
Theory Of Moral Sentiments

This paper presents some views of Adam Smith based on some selected problems of business ethics. These can be found in his famous works—The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations—and in his lectures at the Glasgow University, where he was a professor of moral philosophy in 1752–1764. The main argument of the paper is that ethical problems (presented mainly in The Theory of Moral Sentiments) are also present in his political economy, which contradicts some neoliberal interpretations of his works as ones of the “intellectual father of capitalism”. In The Wealth of Nations, Smith criticizes each social class because of the fact that its interests are incompatible with the good of the whole society. He condemned the monopolist efforts of the traders and entrepreneurs, described some property owners as “vain egoists” and advanced the interests of the poor. He maintained that the interests of the traders should be supported when these were compatible with the interest of the consumers. The desire for possession and wealth should be analyzed from the social point of view: It is good when it contributes to the common good and the reproduction of humankind.

Population as a GDP Proxy in Adam Smith

2021 ◽  
Vol 19 (2) ◽  
pp. 115-123
Author(s):  
Maria Pia Paganelli
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Gross Domestic Product ◽  
Population Growth ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Domestic Product ◽  
Balance Of Trade ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Growing Population

How do we measure economic growth? In the eighteenth century, well before the birth of Gross Domestic Product commonly used today, looking at the sign of the balance of trade was a way to take the pulse of a nation's economy. Adam Smith rejects this measure and instead suggests that we should look at population growth. Nations that are able to produce enough to support the life of a growing population have growing economies, nations with constant population have stagnant economies, and nations that face a declining population have contracting economies. Thus, population for Adam Smith is a proxy for our Gross Domestic Product, indicating the changes in production in a country over time.

From John Smith to Adam Smith

Virginia 1619 ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 282-308
Author(s):  
Jack P. Greene
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
Systematic Survey ◽  
Anglo American ◽  
Settler Colonization ◽  
Wealth Of Nations ◽  
The Many ◽  
Working Out ◽  
Considerable Experience

This chapter explores the long-term legacies of 1619 for the construction of an English settler colonial model. While contemporary Irish plantation projects gave the English colonizing movement considerable experience with settler colonization in densely populated and recognizably European areas, that experience by no means prepared that movement for planting in far-off lands inhabited by unfamiliar people with exotic cultures. As England’s first sustained experience with settler colonization at a distance, the Virginia colony played a foundational role in identifying, confronting, and working out solutions to the many problems that colonizers throughout the Anglo-American world would face as they created in the Americas the powerful and highly successful settler empire that many observers, including Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations (1776), would celebrate during the last half of the eighteenth century. This essay treats the Virginia colony as a learning laboratory and offer a systematic survey of the problems the colony confronted and how its solutions would inform and influence later English settler colonizing projects.

Dancing around the Bride: The Inter-Asian Competition for Japanese Copper, 1700–1760

Itinerario ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 37-60
Author(s):  
Ryuto Shimada
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Economic Development ◽  
Adam Smith ◽  
East India Company ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Dutch East India Company ◽  
Systematic Analysis ◽  
Market Participants ◽  
English East India Company ◽  
Wealth Of Nations

Adam Smith, the well-known eighteenth-century economist, investigated a number of important themes regarding the Dutch East India Company (Verenigde Oostindbche Compagnie, VOC) as well as its counterpart, the English East India Company. These continue to provide principal topics in the historical study of the VOC. Through a systematic analysis, he came to the conclusion that free trade is more beneficial to the wealth of nations than monopolised trade. In his view, an economy based on the division of production along with competition among market participants was the best precondition for accelerating economic development.

The ‘state’ of degrowth: Economic growth and the making of state hegemony in Turkey

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 513-527
Author(s):  
Bengi Akbulut
Keyword(s):  
Economic Growth ◽  
The State ◽  
Economic Systems ◽  
Social Imaginary ◽  
Growth Functions ◽  
Collective Goal ◽  
The Social ◽  
Distributional Conflicts ◽  
Political Economic ◽  
Social Collective

Critical perspectives on economic growth have laid bare the fragility of the assumed link between material growth and socio-ecological wellbeing. The appeal of economic growth, however, goes beyond the economic sphere. As a societal goal, growth is often mobilized to pre-empt and/or co-opt opposition around issues of social justice and redistribution. Not only does the constitution of growth as a collective goal serve to unite the internally fragmented sphere of the social and brush aside (class-based) distributional conflicts, but it also enables the distribution of material concessions to subordinate classes for eliciting their consent. The degrowth proposal should thus more broadly tackle the material and discoursive ways in which growth enables the reproduction of contemporary political-economic systems. This paper argues that the notion of growth functions as a powerful ideal that shapes state–society relationships and social-collective imaginations. It demonstrates this by discussing the making of state in Turkey through a Gramscian perspective, where the notion of economic growth is deeply imprinted in the broader practices of the state to legitimize its existence and dominates the social imaginary in a way that cannot be easily dismissed. Against this backdrop, the possibility of not only effectuating, but also imagining and desiring degrowth would call for a radical reconfiguration of state–society relationships. Within this context, the Kurdish Freedom Movement’s project of Democratic Economy emerges as an alternative, both to the nation-state paradigm and to the imperative of economic growth.

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