Economic Sentiments

Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment

Datos Bibliográficos

ID9711732
AutoresRoger E Backhouse (0000-0003-2393-6517, University of Birmingham, autor de correspondencia)
Año2002
Volumen112
Número480
PáginasF384-F386
Fecha de publicación2002-06-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe Economic Journal (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0013-0133 • E-ISSN: 1468-0297
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/1468-0297.t01-16-00050
OpenAlexW2061030913
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas93

In the modern world, Adam Smith represents the principle of laissez‐faire and the idea that free, competitive markets act like an invisible hand to ensure an optimal allocation of resources. He is seen as a forerunner of both the tradition that includes the Arrow– Debreu theorems on the efficiency of competitive equilibrium and of the neo‐liberal policies that have dominated the political agenda during the past two decades or so. This book shows this view of Smith to be a myth: that his economic ideas cannot be separated from his political philosophy and that his attitude towards freedom was radically different from that found in modern liberal economics. Rothschild presents a complex picture of Smith, from which I extract only a few points. In his lifetime, Smith was considered a radical, ‘a subversive and a friend of French philosophy' (p. 52) – one of the inspirations for the French Revolution of 1789. It was only after his death that he was reinvented as a conservative. In this process, his ideas were significantly altered. He became associated with economic freedom, whereas he had been as passionate an advocate of political freedom as of economic. People began to forget that he had consistently supported the poor against the rich, the weak against the powerful, and that he had opposed the idea that the unbridled pursuit of self‐interest was conducive to the public good. Arguments about the value of freedom for its own sake gave way to arguments that focused exclusively on the consequences of economic freedom for efficiency. Smith ceased to be the author of a radical political philosophy and became a conservative economist

Adam smith · Arrow · Classical liberalism · Condorcet method · Democracy · Economic freedom · Economics · Enlightenment · Epistemology · Individualism · Invisible hand · Laissez-faire · Law and economics · Liberalism · Neoclassical economics · Political freedom · Political philosophy · Political science · Politics · Scottish Enlightenment · Value (mathematics · Economic theories and models · Economic Theory and Institutions · Economic Theory and Policy · Law · Mathematics · Philosophy