The History of Economic Thought (Especially Adam Smith)

Nicholas Curott attempts to correct some misrepresentations of Adam Smith’s monetary and banking analyses. However, failing to recognize Smith’s adoption of David Hume’s quantity theory of price levels and the price-specie-flow mechanism, Smith’s distinction between money and credit and their sources, and Smith’s suggestion of real, rather than “fictitious,” bills as safer for private bank lending, Curott denigrates Smith’s theory of money and banking as inferior to some modern writers’. Curott also mischaracterizes Smith’s money demand function, which is best represented as a rectangular hyperbola. I draw from the Wealth of Nations to correct Curott’s misrepresentations of Smith’s analyses.

This article examines how The wealth of nations (1776) was transformed into an amorphous text regarding the imperial question throughout the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Adam Smith had left behind an ambiguous legacy on the subject of empire: a legacy that left long-term effects upon subsequent British imperial debates. In his chapter on colonies, Smith had proposed both a scheme for the gradual devolution of the British empire and a theoretical scheme for imperial federation. In response to the growing global popularity of protectionism and imperial expansionism, the rapid development of new tools of globalization, and the frequent onset of economic downturns throughout the late Victorian and Edwardian eras, turn-of-the-century proponents of British imperial federation formed into a formidable opposition to England's prevailing free trade orthodoxy – Cobdenism – a free trade ideology which famously expanded upon the anti-imperial dimensions of The wealth of nations. Ironically, at the turn of the century many advocates for imperial federation also turned to Smith for their intellectual inspiration. Adam Smith thus became an advocate of empire, and his advocacy left an indelible intellectual mark upon the burgeoning British imperial crisis.

Livro resultante de Dissertação de Mestrado em Economia. O problema enfrentado era se Adam Smith era ou não um precursor da Teoria da Decisão da Economia Comportamental. Usando revisão bibliográfica e análise de conteúdo, Teoria dos Sentimentos Morais, História da Astronomia e Riqueza das Nações são comparados a obras da Economia Comportamental. Smith, em sua TSM, traz uma decisão bidimensional: racional e emotiva, permeada de heurísticas e vieses, antecipando a Economia Comportamental em mais de 200 anos.

O artigo resume a natureza da firma de acordo com diferentes abordagens da história do pensamento econômico, agrupando-as em duas classes: perspectivas de eficiência (alocativas) e perspectivas de crescimento (acumulativas). Em seguida examina contribuições que têm na sociedade anônima do  século XX o seu objeto de análise, destacando suas relações com o momento histórico e enquadrando-as na proposta dicotômica desenvolvida no início do artigo. Conclui com observações críticas.

Although its origins stem from theological debates, the general will would ultimately become one of the most celebrated and denigrated concepts emerging from early modern political thought.  Jean-Jacques Rousseau would make it the central element of his political theory, and it would take on a life of its own during the French Revolution before being subjected to generations of embrace or opprobrium.  James Farr and David Lay Williams have collected for the first time a set of essays that track the evolving history of the general will from its origins to recent times.  These essays include attention to the general will’s theological, political, formal, and substantive dimensions with a careful eye to the concept’s virtues and limitations as understood by its expositors and critics, among them Pascal, Malebranche, Locke, Spinoza, Montesquieu, Constant, Tocqueville, Adam Smith, and John Rawls.

Hla Myint interpreted Adam Smith's "two distinct benefits" from foreign trade as a vent-for-surplus gain and a productivity gain. This classification has been adopted widely, but the vent-for-surplus gain has caused some debates. In this article, I show that Myint's categorization is based on a misinterpretation. Smith's two distinct benefits consist of exports and imports. Additionally, Smith does not expound a vent-for-surplus theory. Besides Smith's true benefits from trade, I discuss reasons for their modern misinterpretation and David Ricardo's and John Stuart Mill's criticism of Smith's theory, which is often misunderstood as well.

The "raging debate" over the "new paradigm" of world-ecology "attacking mainstream economics" is still seen as an "academic fringe affair" (each of the "contenders doing their own thing" & "within their boxes" viz. their rexpective "filter bubbles." The present paper is a "call to battle," viz. to take that discussion into the "heartland" of mainstream economics - and that is neoclassical value theory based on "subjective utility."  I will discuss WHY we should do this, and HOW to...

Development, underdevelopment and globalization have had a common history since the Great Discoveries led to colonization, trade, and with the Industrial Revolution, to unequal technological development. This book first summarizes the long term history of globalization. It then develops a theory of multiple equilibria in technological change (technological poverty traps) to explain how the market economy can generate wide income differences between countries. Next, it shows how poverty traps in education and health can further widen inequality. It then shows that technology traps can exist in the context of trade, explaining the impact of the colonial diktat on the emergence of underdevelopment. Technology traps can also exist in the context of foreign direct investment, characterizing contemporary globalization. Finally, the industrial or mass market economy in general is shown to be characterized by a technology gradient akin to a poverty trap that generates inefficiency and inequality. Free market policies need to be complemented with distributive and innovative policies to improve economic performance and equality. The necessary tax funding can be provided at the national level compatibly with globalization under appropriate International agreements.

This article argues that the self-love that motivates exchange in The Wealth of Nations (WN) can be seen as the desire for deserved approval discussed by Adam Smith in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS). This often overlooked desire appears in TMS as the most representative kind of self-love. Exchange motivated by this desire emerges as the way to find confirmation through others’ appraisal of one’s own self-assessment, and thus to find an agreed-upon measure for respective deserved praise. The target in this economic relationship is that equivalence that signals mutual recognition of deserved esteem. Equivalence here is the aim and not the result of exchange, unlike a tug-of-war, where both parties try to give as little and gain as much as possible regardless of the recognition each deserves.

During the War of Resistance to Japan (1937-45), the cultural scene in Japanese-occupied Shanghai took on a "feminine" quality, as female leads dominated stage performance and film screens. This essay seeks to engage this gendered phenomenon through examples of Ouyang Yuqian's wartime play Peach Blossom Fan (Taohua shan) and the film Mulan Joins the Army (Mulan congjun). Borrowing affect theory in conjunction with the gendered perception of modernity, the author argues that these representations of female characters, on the one hand, highlight the subjective projection of male intellectuals motivated by intense feelings of shame and anger, which constitutes a feminized national imagination encountering the colonial Other. On the other hand, such representations continue the May Fourth project of enlightening and liberating woman from the conventional family while reintroducing the concept of the nation in the family setting and proposing the foundational family as the basic unit of the new nation.

Nicolas Dutot (1684–1741) is an important figure for the history of economic thought, as a pioneer in monetary theory and price statistics, and for economic history, as a chronicler of John Law’s System. Yet, until recently, very little information about him was known, some of it incorrect. I present extensive research that reveals a remarkable career rising from humble origins and full of surprises. He spent his formative years in the ranks of the “ancienne finance” he was thought to despise, and then worked for the Chamber of Justice that he so decried in his writings, only to be sent to the Bastille for corruption. After working for Law’s Bank and then retiring quite comfortably, he continued to socialize with his pre-System financier and banker friends, at least for a while. He also joined a short-lived learned society and accumulated a substantial library that reveals much about his tastes and affinities. The portrait that emerges is at odds with the image of an honest accountant he tried to project, but also richer and more engaging.

This is a review from the Fall 2017 issue of Eighreenth-Century Studies of Mike Hill and Warren Montag, _The Other Adam Smith_ (Stanford UP, 2014).  This is a challenging, daring, and innovative book; although I raise some questions about approach and method, I highly recommend it to anyone interested in Smith or in the intertwining of eighteenth-century philosophy and its historical moment.

Adam Smith is commonly referred to as one of the first who thought of foreign trade in terms of an international division of labour, whereby each country specialises in the production of certain goods. It is argued that he made a strong case for foreign trade on this basis. In this article, I will, in contrast, show that Smith does not understand foreign trade as an international division of labour. Economic progress rather than international trade determines domestic production structures. Apart from domestic development, international trade patterns are affected by transport costs and geographical factors, as well as producer and consumer preferences. In Smith’s theory, countries will not specialise, but rather produce similar goods. The division of labour plays a role in Smith’s theory of foreign trade, but in a mechanical, not territorial, sense.

This article examines the way Pareto addresses the dynamic of social equilibrium and the evolution of economic institutions based on the principle of rupture of the Machiavellian Moment. In the first part, we analyse why and how Pareto's categories (residues, derivation, interests and social heterogeneity, logical actions and non-logical actions) borrow from those of Machiavelli (virtu, fortuna, corruption and ordine), to define various forms of Machiavellian Moment. In the second part, we show that this borrowing allows Pareto to explain: (i) the evolution of political equilibriums, from the distinction the author makes between "Maximum of utility FOR a community in sociology" and "Maximum of ophelimity FOR a community in political economy"; and (ii) the alternative between free trade and protectionism.

When the article ''Experimental Confirmation of the Existence of a Giffen Good,'' authored by Raymond C. Battalio, John H. Kagel, and Carl A. Kogut, appeared in 1991 in the American Economic Review it represented the culmination of two separate and seemingly unrelated traditions ...

This article examines the way Vilfredo Pareto addresses the dynamics of social equilibrium and the evolution of economic institutions based on the principle of the rupture of the Machiavellian Moment. In the first part, we analyze why and how Pareto’s categories (residues, derivations, interests, \social heterogeneity, logical actions, and non-logical1 actions) borrow from those of Machiavelli (virtù, fortuna, corruptio, and ordine) to define various forms of the Machiavellian Moment. In the second part, we show that this borrowing allows Pareto to explain: (i) the evolution of political equilibriums, from the distinction the author makes between “Maximum of utility FOR a community in sociology” and “Maximum of ophelimity FOR a community in political economy”; and (ii) the alternative between free trade and protectionism.

El siguiente artículo busca exponer algunas reflexiones hechas por Adam Smith sobre el comercio internacional en sus Cartas y, especialmente en aquellas escritas luego de la publicación de La Riqueza de las Naciones (WN). El trabajo intenta mostrar las ideas propuestas por Smith en esta cuestión enfocando el análisis exclusivamente en su epistolario, dentro del cual es posible encontrar diversas misivas enviadas por él a personalidades políticas de su tiempo. Como mostraré, el escocés reafirma en ellas sus grandes tesis sobre las ventajas del comercio internacional, aunque destacando matices, ejemplos y desarrollos argumentativos que, sin contradecir lo dicho en WN, permiten comprender más acabadamente su visión sobre esta temática. Palabras Clave: Adam Smith-Comercio Internacional-Libre Comercio-Cartas de Adam Smith ADAM SMITH AND INTERNATIONAL TRADE IN HIS CORRESPONDENCE Abstract In this article, I try to expose Adam Smith's ideas on international trade which can be found in his letters, and especially in those written after the Wealth of Nations was published. I will focus my analysis exclusively in his Correspondence. Smith wrote several letters to different political leaders of his time dealing on this issue. As I will show, the Scottish economist posed in them basically the same ideas that can be found in WN, but in order to justify his ideas, he uses sometimes different examples and alternative argumentations. Knowing them allows us to get to a better understanding of his ideas.

Para economistas como Arrow, Hahn y Tobin, por ejemplo, la expresión
“mano invisible” es la contribución más importante hecha al pensamiento
económico y es explicativa de los procesos económicos (Arrow & Hahn,
1971: 1 y Tobin, 1992:117). En este artículo se proponen una serie de
argumentos a fin de sostener que la expresión “mano invisible” de Adam
Smith no es relevante en términos explicativos. En primer lugar, Smith es
renuente a aceptar como explicativas expresiones que apelen a agentes
invisibles e inteligentes para intentar explicar fenómenos naturales. Para
analizar esto, se sugiere una lectura humeana de Smith, así como también
una interpretación de la crítica por parte de Smith de Kepler y Descartes.

The vast majority of pre-Classical and of many Classical economists thought that it was natural to incorporate value judgments and norms in their economic reasoning. However, there was a gradual dominance of the idea of a neutral or value-free economic science which gained momentum with the second Marginalist generation. More specifically, clear signs of this tendency can be found in the works of Sidgwick, Pareto and Fisher. The paper examines the process of this change and provides possible justifications. In particular, the work discusses this trend with reference to the growing influence of classical physics, and positivist philosophies of science. Consequently, the paper shows that there was a gradual broadening of the meaning of the term “value judgments” to include mental states and motivations. These developments are essential in the understanding of the formation of the standard economic theory and especially of microeconomic theory.