![]() ![]() įor these reasons, I have always wondered why anyone would take Adam Smith seriously. ![]() In fact, it was during Smith ’ s lifetime that the seeds of the global British Empire took root. Apparently Smith was not an advocate of laissez faire foreign trade, despite the vast fortunes made after the Age of Exploration and the Great Age of Sail by British merchants, among whom were a few of Smith ’ s friends. ![]() Yet much of Book IV and all of IV.2 are concerned with domestic markets and domestic production. “By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” ( IV.2.9)Īgain, even today this passage is quoted as a defense of laissez faire capitalism and globalization. Smith mentioned the “ invisible hand ” again in his most seminal book, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (commonly called The Wealth of Nations): They have been proven wrong, or at least idealistic, throughout recorded history: a virgin ’ s na ï vet é. ” These are highly commendable sentiments. ” Further, at III.3.6 he wrote: “ One individual must never prefer himself so much even to any other individual, as to hurt or injure that other, in order to benefit himself, though the benefit to the one should be much greater than the hurt or injury to the other. Yet Smith ’ s “ invisible hand ” is still used today in textbooks and classrooms as a metaphor for teaching the supposed wonders of free markets under laissez faire capitalism.Īt III.3.5, Smith also wrote: “ When the happiness or misery of others depends in any respect upon our conduct, we dare not, as self-love might suggest to us, prefer the interest one to that of many. I have never understood how anyone could take this seriously. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species." ( emphasis added) They consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. "The rich only select from the heap what is most precious and agreeable. ![]() Yet he wrote arrant nonsense like this in The Theory of Moral Sentiments IV.1.10: He must have seen the vast wealth and dire poverty all around him in Scotland, England and Europe. Smith toured Europe as a tutor to the young Henry Scott, Duke of Buccleuch, the scion of a great Scottish family. (Note that he was not – repeat, not – an economist or a scientist.) In either case, Smith ’ s major works exhibit a virgin ’ s na ï vet é. Of course, he may have availed himself of illicit encounters, yet that would not have been in keeping with his lofty position as a professor of moral philosophy in a prudish culture. He never married he lived with his Mum after he retired from teaching and tutoring. As a student and teacher of Economics, I have often thought Adam Smith probably died a virgin. ![]()
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