Many Smith scholars have noted the oddity of taking "The Invisible Hand" as an important theme in Smith, given that it appears in one short passage in The Wealth of Nations and one short passage in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (and in the second case means something altogether different from the meaning it is taken to have today and arguably has in the first case). Gavin Kennedy has made this point on his blog. Emma Rothschild's book, Economic Sentiments, makes it as well. But a new paper by Daniel Klein argues, contrarily, for the centrality of the concept to Smith's thought, and here, I kid you not, is why:
these two tiny passages each occur at the exact midpoint of the books in which they appear!!!
Except that even if one buys into the weird "logic," this argument is not quite there as the phrases do not appear at the exact midpoints of the books, but more like "somewhere near the middle," as in like within 5% of the middle.
ReplyDeleteRemember, boys and girls:
ReplyDelete"I" is at the center of "centrifugal".
And if you read Psalm 46, the 46th word in is "shake" and the 46th word back is "spear," so...
ReplyDeleteBut that at least has the "he was around when they were doing it, worked for money, was known in the Realm, and wrote verse so Psalms would make sense" aura, as opposed to Klein's "gosh, it wasn't all written at once, so clearly it was carefully planned that it kinda sorta happened the way I describe it"
Oh ye of tin foil hats and pyramids from the neoclassical nincompoops. My favorite passage from Smith is found in the wikpdia article on economic rent
ReplyDelete"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion, or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes the rent of land (...)"
And indirectly From Labor Theory of cost