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Mark Twain once quipped that a "classic [is] something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read." This definition fits Adam Smith's timeless work The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776 on the eve of the American Revolution. For more than two centuries, partisans and pundits across the political spectrum have selectively quoted (or purported to quote) Smith's masterpiece of economic theory in support of legislative agendas and public policy. Smith himself would have been surprised at the near universal acceptance of his theories, especially given changes in the world economy since the 18th century. This book provides a close reading of his work, revealing a complex intellect schooled in the high moral ideals of classical philosophy, yet firmly grounded in the pragmatism of international trade and commerce.
The Letter to Strahan is an ostensible letter that Adam Smith wrote on the last days, death, and character of his closest friend, the philosopher David Hume, and published alongside Hume’s autobiography, My Own Life, in 1777. Other than his two books, it is the only work that Smith published under his name during his lifetime, and it elicited a great deal of commentary and controversy. Because of Hume’s reputation for impiety, Smith’s portrayal of his friend’s cheerfulness and equanimity during his final days provoked outrage among the devout. Smith later commented that this work “brought upon me ten times more abuse than the very violent attack I had made upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain”—meaning, of course, The Wealth of Nations. This is the first annotated version of this fascinating and important work. Along with the Letter to Strahan, the volume also includes Hume’s My Own Life, the work to which the Letter was a kind of companion piece; two personal letters related to the Letter; and three published responses to the Letter—two viciously critical and one generally favorable. A substantial editor’s introduction discusses the context, composition, publication, and significance of the Letter, along with the strong reaction that it provoked. Taken together, the works included in the volume provide an entertaining and accessible entrée into some of the most controversial debates over religion and morality in the eighteenth century.
Dearest friends -- The cheerful skeptic (1711-1749) -- Encountering Hume (1723-1749) -- A budding friendship (1750-1754) -- The historian and the Kirk (1754-1759) -- Theorizing the moral sentiments (1759) -- Fêted in France (1759-1766) -- Quarrel with a wild philosopher (1766-1767) -- Mortally sick at sea (1767-1775) -- Inquiring into the Wealth of Nations (1776) -- Dialoguing about natural religion (1776) -- A philosopher's death (1776) -- Ten times more abuse (1776-1777) -- Smith's final years in Edinburgh (1777-1790) -- Hume's My Own Life and Smith's Letter from Adam Smith, LL. D. to William Strahan, Esq
Invaluable wisdom on living a good life from the founder of modern economics.
In this, the first full-scale biography of Adam Smith for a hundred years, Ian Simpson Ross brings his subject into historical light as a thinker and author by examining his family circumstance, education, career, and social and intellectual circle, including David Hume and Francois Quesnay. Smith's life is revealed through his correspondence, archival documents, the reports of contemporaries, and the record of his publications. This is the life of a Scottish moral philosopher whose legacy of thought concerns and affects us all. Its lively and informed account will appeal to those interested in the social and intellectual milieu of the eighteenth century, and in Scottish history. Economists and philosophers will find much to read about the history of their disciplines, supported by full documentation.
Recent years have witnessed a renewed debate over the costs at which the benefits of free markets have been bought. This book revisits the moral and political philosophy of Adam Smith, capitalism's founding father, to recover his understanding of the morals of the market age. In so doing it illuminates a crucial albeit overlooked side of Smith's project: his diagnosis of the ethical ills of commercial societies and the remedy he advanced to cure them. Focusing on Smith's analysis of the psychological and social ills endemic to commercial society - anxiety and restlessness, inauthenticity and mediocrity, alienation and individualism - it argues that Smith sought to combat corruption by cultivating the virtues of prudence, magnanimity and beneficence. The result constitutes a new morality for modernity, at once a synthesis of commercial, classical and Christian virtues and a normative response to one of the most pressing political problems of Smith's day and ours.
The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free markets Originally published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America’s founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Smith is one of the most influential icons of economic thought in America. Glory Liu traces how generations of Americans have read, reinterpreted, and weaponized Smith’s ideas, revealing how his popular image as a champion of American-style capitalism and free markets is a historical invention. Drawing on a trove of illuminating archival materials, Liu tells the story of how an unassuming Scottish philosopher captured the American imagination and played a leading role in shaping American economic and political ideas. She shows how Smith became known as the father of political economy in the nineteenth century and was firmly associated with free trade, and how, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Chicago School of Economics transformed him into the preeminent theorist of self-interest and the miracle of free markets. Liu explores how a new generation of political theorists and public intellectuals has sought to recover Smith’s original intentions and restore his reputation as a moral philosopher. Charting the enduring fascination that this humble philosopher from Scotland has held for American readers over more than two centuries, Adam Smith’s America shows how Smith continues to be a vehicle for articulating perennial moral and political anxieties about modern capitalism.
In launching modern economics, Adam Smith paved the way for laissez-faire capitalism, Marxism, and contemporary social science. This book scrutinizes Smith's disparagement of politics and religion to illuminate the subtlety of his rhetoric, the depth of his thought, and the ultimate shortcomings of his project. The author analyzes Smith's ideas on government, justice, human psychology, and international relations, stressing Smith's efforts to elevate wealth at the expense of citizenship and to replace normative political philosophy with historical theorizing and empirical modeling that emphasize economic causes. The book also provides the most comprehensive interpretation available of Smith's views on religion, examining the discrepancies between The Wealth of Nations and The Theory of Moral Sentiments while demonstrating Smith's intransigent rejection of heaven, hell, Providence, Jesus, eschatology, prophecy, revelation, and theocracy. Throughout, the author combats superficial interpretations of Smith by revealing the complexity of his views on a variety of subjects: the deceptive allure of technology, wealth, power, and empire; the relationship between political and economic freedom; the impact of economic progress on warfare; the quarrel between ancients and moderns; the difficulties posed to the citizen by the burgeoning complexity of society; the differences between human wisdom, divine wisdom, and the wisdom of nature; the obstacles to separating church and state; and the social and psychological roots of religion. The concluding chapter appraises the demise of communism in light of the Marxian emancipation of economics from politics and religion.
This work details the theological sources and moral significance of the life and work of the Scottish moral philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790). The panel of contributors deepens our understanding of Adam Smith in his religious and theological context and the significance of this understanding for contemporary moral, economic, and political challenges to modern social life. The chapters cover a broad range of disciplinary and historical concerns, from Smith’s view of providence and his famous "invisible hand" to the role of self-interest and benevolence in Smith’s social and economic thought. A better appreciation for the moral and theological dimensions of Smith’s thought provides not only a better understanding of Smith’s own context and significance in the Scottish Enlightenment but also promises to assist in meeting the perennial challenges of properly connecting economic realities to moral responsibility. The book is of interest to advanced students and scholars of the history of economic thought, historical and moral theology, intellectual history, political science, and philosophy.