Creative Commons
Blogs I Follow
Tag Archives: adam-smith
Adam Smith and the mercantile system
Thus far these past few weeks (see here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here), we have surveyed the first 11 additions in Adam Smith’s pamphlet Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. … Continue reading
Tobacco, textiles, and wine: the immortal Adam Smith
Nota bene: This is the next installment of my multi-part review of Adam Smith’s 1784 pamphlet Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, american-revolution, Economics, History, Politics, Trade, wine
2 Comments
France, England, and the immortal Adam Smith
Thus far (see here and here), we have studied the first three passages in Adam Smith’s 79-page pamphlet: Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth … Continue reading
Revisiting another Adam Smith problem
Moving on (see here), we now turn to the shortest selection in Adam Smith’s 79-page pamphlet: Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations … Continue reading
Adam Smith on wealth, power, and the self-correcting nature of markets
Last week (see here and here), I mentioned how Adam Smith had published a 79-page pamphlet in 1784 containing 13 separate inserts or “additions” to the first two editions of The Wealth of Nations (1776, 1778). Of these 13 inserts, … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, Economics, economy, finance, Markets, Politics
6 Comments
Adam Smith and the division of labor: cure or curse?
The first three chapters of The Wealth of Nations (WN, I.i-iii) are devoted to the division of labor. Although Adam Smith will later have some bad things to say about the individual effects of the division of labor in Book … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, division-of-labor, Economics, History, Philosophy, Politics, specialization, the-wealth-of-nations
6 Comments
Rousseau’s theory of original sin
As we saw in a previous post (see here), three passages in Rousseau’s Second Discourse may have resonated with a young Adam Smith. Yesterday, we saw the first of these three fragments; today, we will take a closer look at … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, original-sin, Property, rousseau, second-discourse
2 Comments
Rousseau’s just-so story
Yesterday, I transcribed three separate passages from Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Second Discourse, and I then asked: why would someone like Adam Smith have singled-out those three specific selections in his 1756 letter to the Edinburgh Review? For reference, Smith’s translation of … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, division-of-labor, History, just-so-story, Philosophy, rousseau
2 Comments
Three passages in Rousseau’s Second Discourse that may have resonated with a young Adam Smith
I will begin my survey of Jean-Jacques Rousseau below the fold with three not-so-random fragments or extracts from his celebrated Second Discourse:
Adam Smith counterfactual
A counterfactual is a statement about what would have happened if a past event had been different. It’s a “what if?” scenario, considering an alternative reality where something that actually occurred did not, or vice versa. On this note, below … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged adam-smith, cognitive-dissonance, commissioner-of-customs, Economics, History
Leave a comment
prior probability 