Seduced by System: Edmund Burke's Aesthetic Embrace of Adam Smith's Philosophy

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Assumption without representation: the unacknowledged abstraction from communities and social goods

We have not clearly acknowledged the abstraction from unpriceable “social goods” (derived from communities) which, different from private and public goods, simply disappear if it is attempted to market them. Separability from markets and economics has not been argued, much less established. Acknowledging communities would reinforce rather than undermine them, and thus facilitate the production of social goods. But it would also help economics by facilitating our understanding of – and response to – financial crises as well as environmental destruction and many social problems, and by reducing the alienation from economics often felt by students and the public

Adam Smith's Invisible Hands

William Grampp’s JPE article on Adam Smith is creative and provocative. It errs, however, by disparaging the invisible hand’s importance as a symbol of various economic processes that help societies prosper in ways that individuals neither intend nor comprehend. Four specific problems stand out. First, Grampp unsoundly tries to limit the relevance of the invisible hand within the Wealth of Nations to situations in which a merchant increases domestic capital and strengthens national defense. Second, Grampp presents an oversimplified account of WN’s treatment of international relations. Third he conspicuously misinterprets the trickle-down process of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where Smith argues that an invisible hand promotes the welfare of the poor despite the greed of the rich. Fourth, by failing to plumb the connection between these two invisible hands—and by dismissing the relevance of a third invisible hand, which Smith elsewhere invokes to illustrate the superstitious outlook that pervades “primitive†societies—Grampp overlooks the complex interrelationships between Smith’s two books. Whereas WN presents the invisible hand in an atheistic context, the TMS version seems to be the hand of God; this religious contrast mirrors TMS’s more optimistic perspective on the poor and its more ambivalent evaluation of “riches and power.†Grampp is wise to stress the inconsistencies, puzzles, and exaggerations that Smith bequeathed to his readers. But some of Grampp’s criticisms are glib, and he deserves blame for trivializing the invisible hand. The three invisible hands, I argue, not only illuminate the rhetorical strategies that helped Smith influence institutions and public policies; they also signal his commitment to promoting curiosity and inquiry.Adam Smith,invisible hand,Wealth of Nations,Theory of Moral Sentiments