Adam Smith and the Birth of Economics | Lawrence Reed

Lawrence Reed, President of FEE, discusses Adam Smith's role in the development of economic thought. Mr. Reed outlines how Smith's background in moral philosophy led to his pioneering the study of economics. This lecture was given during the 2011 FEE Summer Seminars.

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[Eben335]

Great quote. I hope we can follow Bloom's Aristotelian dialogues and learn about sustainability from other cultures.

Smith had already discussed the harm profits do to society, yet the free marketeers are proposing more of their market deities as a solution. For instance, the trading of infested goods with Indians rather than sharing dialogue - this would come only through social means, arts, history and politics not economics. Hence, in many ways the American mind has opened.

[wikicross]

Greek philosophers were the first men we know to address the problem of ethnocentrism. Distinctions between the good and one’s own,between nature and convention,between the just and the legal are the signs of this movement of thought.They related the good to the fulfillment of the whole natural human potential and were aware that few, if any,of the nations of men had ways that allowed such fulfillment.They were open to the good.They had to use the good,which was not their own,to judge their own.

[wikicross]

On the contrary. I'll quote from Allan Bloom's "The Closing of the American Mind": The scientific study of other cultures is almost exclusively a Western phenomenon, and its origin was obviously connected with the search for new and better ways, or at least for validation for which there is no felt need in other cultures.[...] The reason for the non-Western closedness, or ethnocentrism is clear. Men must love and be loyal to their families and their people in order to preserve them.

[Eben335]

I agree with some of this. We have to accept that we have benefited from the imaginings of 'primatives' and lectures about Adam Smith tend to boil down to hubris rather than acknowledgement - heaven forbid that other cultures and ways of knowing can actually enlighten the Westerner.

[wikicross]

We are the children of Rome and Athens. Hunter-gathering just won't do for us. A life without any sense of progress is oblivious and not worth living.

[Eben335]

What is 'free trade' anyway.

No country has ever engaged in 'free trade'. Even when the corn laws were abolished, the British Empire still charged premiums on scarce goods through its imperium. The countries in the world today that benefit from 'free trade' promote it, those that do not are described as subverting the market. As if the market cares if it is being subverted or not.

The cold war is at a stand still between North and South Korea. So, technically it is not over as you suggest.

[Eben335]

Sorry,

1. Sardinia and Okinawa have greater life-spans without capitalism (hospitals). It is called eating a healthy diet. Medicines (pharmacopeia) are derived from ancient knowledge. In fact, most medicines are still ripped off from the 'primitive natives'. Even arrhythmias were appropriated from gypsies ...

2. Market slavery is different to biblical. The master does not crack the whip anymore, money does.

3. As we deplete metals (mining) we lose irreplaceable Helium.

Thank you.