Adam Smith in His Time and Ours
Author: Jerry Z. Muller
List Price: $26.95
Our Price: Click to see the latest and low price
ISBN: 0691001618
Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr (03 July, 1995)
Sales Rank: 176,619
Average Customer Rating: 3.75 out of 5
Customer Reviews
Rating: 5 out of 5
Excellant primer on the thought of Adam Smith
I couldn't disagree more with the review of Max Hayes. It would and does shock people to learn that Adam Smith wasn't primarily an economist as we think of the term. The fact that his work was centered around moral philosophy and making people "decent" is widely unknown and most people have never even heard of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Robert Heilbroner said it best when he called Smith "the most quoted and least read of the worldly philophers."This book is not a biography of Smith, which would probably be pretty boring. It is an examination of his ideas. Muller starts by placing the book in its intellectual context of earlier traditions. Than he turns to an examination of Smith's work as a whole. This is important because to often Smith is limited to The Wealth of Nations, which is only one element of his thought. Muller examines The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Lectures on Jurisprudence to form a more complete picture of Smith as a moral philisopher.
The most important element of this book is the demonstration that Smith was not a defender of unrestrained greed. Smith sought to defend and construct institutions that would channel individual self-interest into benefical results for the whole of society. Nor was he an enemy of government. While it is true that he thought government often proved a danger to the market because of the influence of what we call special interests, Smith did not reject government regulation totally. In fact he argued for regulation of banking and interest rates and advocated using the government to try and correct the negative effects capitalism had on the intellect of the people through public financed education.
Muller writes a compelling book demonstrating that Smith is not the proto-libertarian so many people claim. That in fact Smith would probably be quite dismayed at the uses to which his thoughts have been applied.
Rating: 1 out of 5
Another Book on Smith
This book is an uninspiring analysis of Smith's work. Nobody who has even a cursory knowledge of Smith's writings would be surprised by what Muller has to say. The basic point that Smith was not a philosopher of unbridled greed is unsurprising. It is not that the thesis of the book is wrong, but it is simply something that could have been said in an article or less. Obviously a lot of hard work went into the book, but it is the product of a mediocre mind.
Rating: 4 out of 5
a very informative book
a very good description of everything Similar Products
The Mind and the Market : Capitalism in Modern European Thought
Book Index