Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Adam Smith Rocks!
Accuracy in Academia ^ | April 2, 2015 | Malcolm A. Kline

Posted on 04/02/2015 8:15:15 AM PDT by Academiadotorg

There’s a reason you don’t see many Adam Smith ties in the faculty lounge. “Adam Smith believed there are few things that the government should do,” James Otteson of Wake Forest said at the Philadelphia Society’s annual meeting in Philadelphia last month.

Otteson is the Executive Director of the BB&T Center for the Study of Capitalism and Teaching Professor of Political Economy at Wake Forest. He is the author of Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life.

Nevertheless, Smith, the Scottish philosopher has inspired American scholars and sages for centuries. Thomas Jefferson recommended The Wealth of Nations as a worthy title for his beloved University of Virginia.

Yet and still, the ideas that Smith promoted are sadly lacking on American campuses. Self-control, for example, is one of these.

Moreover, he is given less quality time, even in free market venues, then more faddish notions. For example, seven years ago, the libertarian Cato Institute devoted a panel to the Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth and Happiness by University of Chicago professors Richard A. Thaler and Cass R. Sunstein.

At the Philadelphia Society conclave, Smith scholar Otteson compared his hero unfavorably to Thaler and Obama advisor Sunstein, and not without reason. Specifically, while Smith endorsed “decentrality” and “no central authority to direct other’s lives,” the UChi profs recommend extensively relying on “centralized experts, like Thaler and Sunstein,” Otteson noted wryly.

The Philadelphia Society is comprised of a group of conservative intellectuals. It was formed in the wake of the Goldwater defeat of 1964.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; Philosophy
KEYWORDS: adamsmith; barrygoldwater; casssunstein; catoinstitute; philadelphiasociety; wakeforest
think an 18th Century Scottish philosopher has less insight about today's economy than one of the president's trusted advisers? Guess again.
1 posted on 04/02/2015 8:15:15 AM PDT by Academiadotorg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | View Replies]

To: aMorePerfectUnion; beaversmom; cloudmountain; cripplecreek; CyberAnt; DBeers; Fungi; GeronL; ...

I don’t know if there’s an Adam Smith or a Milton Friedman ping list but it might be worthwhile. So many do not understand the “invisible” but effective working of the free market economy. Anyway, I thought this was worth passing along.

Milton Friedman on Adam Smith below (they were essentially two peas in a pod).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4-H-e0VbM7M


2 posted on 04/02/2015 8:24:11 AM PDT by PapaNew (The grace of God & freedom always win the debate in the forum of ideas over unjust law & government)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PapaNew

The leftists I know, being Humanists, HATE the idea of the “invisible hand”,

because it smacks too much of God running things, or at least intelligently creating the universe such that things happen in an “undirected by human hands” sort of way.

It denies their own godhood. (Gen 3:3-5)


3 posted on 04/02/2015 8:26:54 AM PDT by MrB (The difference between a Humanist and a Satanist - the latter admits whom he's working for)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 2 | View Replies]

To: Academiadotorg
the libertarian Cato Institute devoted a panel to the Nudge

Nudge? They misspelled it. It's actually spelled n-o-o-d-g-e.

4 posted on 04/02/2015 8:29:20 AM PDT by Maceman
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Academiadotorg

The Invisible Hand of Adam Smith?


5 posted on 04/02/2015 8:30:57 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Academiadotorg

bmp


6 posted on 04/02/2015 8:33:09 AM PDT by gattaca (Republicans believe every day is July 4, democrats believe every day is April 15. Ronald Reagan)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Academiadotorg
Adam Smith believed that the rich man is the man with the most fertile imagination.He ends up producing far more than he can consume himself.

"Without intending it, without knowing it, [the rich] advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species."

Adam Smith

7 posted on 04/02/2015 8:36:35 AM PDT by mjp ((pro-{God, reality, reason, egoism, individualism, natural rights, limited government, capitalism}))
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: Academiadotorg

The wealth of Nations by Knowledge products is the best audio I have heard. It give some back ground and highlight, the book is hard read but I have done it.

Here is a you tube but the audio is not the best. Buy it if you can. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugWhq6bsJQU


8 posted on 04/02/2015 10:37:02 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: MrB

The leftists I know, being Humanists, HATE the idea of the “invisible hand”,

because it smacks too much of God running things, or at least intelligently creating the universe such that things happen in an “undirected by human hands” sort of way.

It denies their own godhood. (Gen 3:3-5)


Repeat LOUD and OFTEN.

I have wondered if the title of his book is from:

Isa 66:12 This is what the LORD says: “I will give Jerusalem a river of peace and prosperity. The wealth of the nations will flow to her. Her children will be nursed at her breasts, carried in her arms, and held on her lap.


9 posted on 04/02/2015 10:40:15 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: trisham

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand


10 posted on 04/02/2015 10:55:54 AM PDT by PeterPrinciple (Thinking Caps are no longer being issued but there must be a warehouse full of them somewhere.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 5 | View Replies]

To: PeterPrinciple

:) Thanks!


11 posted on 04/02/2015 11:08:35 AM PDT by trisham (Zen is not easy. It takes effort to attain nothingness. And then what do you have? Bupkis.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson