Rothschild on Smith

[Michael Perelman]

My interpretation of Smith in my book, The Invention of Capitalism, is that
he was not particularly interested in economic growth and development per
se, but rather he advocated policies that he thought it would promote growth
to change human behavior so that people would relate to each other at arm
length the way merchants treat one another.

Doug Henwood wrote:


> [bounced bec of attached gibberish]
>
> From: "Forstater, Mathew" <ForstaterM at umkc.edu>
>
> I haven't read the book, but sometime in the early 90s Sylvia Nasar
> wrote an article or two for the New York Times, one entitled "Adam Amith
> ain't no Gordon Gekko" and another on Rothschild with the same message,
> by now familiar, that the Wealth of Nations (and specifically Smith's
> notion of self-interest) cannot be understood without The Theory of
> Moral Sentiments, and the idea of Smith as a promoter of "greed is good"
> is quite wrong. Mat
>
> From:   Chris Brooke
>
> >And -- odd as it may seem to our
> >generation, who grew up on the odd "Smith is right-wing" myths
> >propagated by the New Right --

--

Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929

Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail michael at ecst.csuchico.edu