Category Archives: Uncategorized

Nota bene: Below is another short excerpt from Chapter 3 of my forthcoming book with Salim Rashid, Das Adam Smith Problematic? Ethics, Economics and Society. (The works cited are included below the fold.) “[Das Quesnay-Problem] refers to an internal contradiction … Continue reading →

Nota bene: I have blogged about this puzzle before: see here. Below, however, is a revised and corrected excerpt from Chapter 3 of my forthcoming book with Salim Rashid, Das Adam Smith Problematic? Ethics, Economics and Society. (“Cole 1958 refers” … Continue reading →

Happy Monday! Now that we have concluded my detailed chapter-by-chapter survey of The Wealth of Nations (see my post from 11 April), I want to conclude this extended series of elaborate blog posts — by my count, 78 substantive posts … Continue reading →

In other news, my streak of consecutive days blogging hit 1776 days while I was in Philadelphia this weekend! See here. P.S.: I also overheard this beautiful ballad for the first time — fittingly enough — somewhere in the City … Continue reading →

In my previous two posts (see here and here), we have seen why government overborrowing poses such a grave danger to the wealth of a nation. Today, we will take a look at Smith’s surprising and radical solution to this … Continue reading →

In the middle part of Book V, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith restates and rebuts two contemporary arguments in defense of government borrowing. The first argument is a proto-Keynesian one: “The public funds of the different … Continue reading →

“The ordinary expence of the greater part of modern governments in time of peace being equal or nearly equal to their ordinary revenue, when war comes [governments] are both unwilling and unable to increase their revenue in proportion to the … Continue reading →

Adam Smith surveys several methods in Book V, Chapter 3 of The Wealth of Nations by which a government can borrow money. He begin his comprehensive survey with two types of public debt: “unfunded debts” (V.iii.11) and “mortaged debts” (V.iii.12), … Continue reading →

I began this series of daily Adam Smith blog posts (excluding Sundays) way back on January 2nd (see here), starting with Book I, Chapter 1 on The Wealth of Nations — the deservedly-famous “division of labour” chapter. Now, almost four … Continue reading →

Happy Easter Monday! Before we jump into the last chapter of The Wealth of Nations, I have to confess that Adam Smith’s 900-plus-page masterpiece has taken up a lot of my time these past few months. But that is not … Continue reading →