Speaking of Smith Archives

May 24, 2022


Writing at the Center for International Maritime Security, analyst Michael Purzycki argues Smith would have supported the Jones Act. Jon Murphy disagrees and gives Smith the nuance he deserves. 

May 18, 2022


A careful reading of Adam Smith will show that Smith and Nash may be closer than this scene suggests if we look at this problem from Smith’s point of view.

May 9, 2022


"Because of Wheeler’s constant womanizing, Monte Vista turns out to be a target rich environment for suspects. The mystery that Spearman and Fuller have to untangle is this: Was the artist’s death truly a suicide, a crime of passion, or are deeper market forces at work?"

May 5, 2022


Does Adam Smith have any advice for contemporary college students? What might he say to the modern college student just starting out and who feels like they have no clue what they are doing? Why would these dusty old texts help us figure out our way through our chaotic and tumultuous college years?

April 28, 2022

Adam Smith, whose father was a customs agent, had practically grown up on the wharf in Kirkaldy, Scotland, By the 1770s, he could see first-hand the how hard it was for small Scottish fisherman to stay afloat.  They were left out of the subsidies and their costs were high. Salt—required for curing and packing herring—was expensive due to its own duties and barrels had doubled in cost due to the American war. To add insult to injury, large fishing companies taking advantage of the tonnage bounties were fishing off the Scottish coasts chasing herring into “sea lochs” previously fished by locals. The price of herring was driven too high for locals, used to a plentiful and varied diet, to afford. 

April 26, 2022


Friedrich Engels makes an abrupt shift with the following statement: “The modern individual family is founded on the open or concealed domestic slavery of the wife, and modern society is a mass composed of these individual families as its molecules.”In the pages that follow, Engels calls for a social revolution as well as the abolishment of monogamy, private property, and the state. It’s a startling shift in the book. Engels’ thesis is that monogamy and its enforcement mechanism, the state, have created irreconcilable class differences that must be eliminated. His ultimate goal is a return to the communistic life and group marriage, which he believes will result in equality between the sexes.

April 21, 2022

Smith sees the need for such a dual-world given there are times when beneficence may need to be forced to “promot[e] the prosperity of the commonwealth, establish good discipline, and…discourage[e] every sort of vice and impropriety” (pg. 81).  Things like requiring parents to care for their children, children to care for elderly parents, or building party walls to avoid spreading fire (TMS 81, WN 324) should be compelled through force. 

April 19, 2022


Cream crowdie is a dish of whipped cream, sweetened oats and berries, not to be confused with trifle which includes custard and sometimes cake. It's a perfect light dessert to follow a heavy meal and exactly the sort of Scottish dish Smith might have served at a Sunday supper or enjoyed at an Oyster Club dinner just as the conversation was going well. 

April 14, 2022


The West’s decision to sanction Russia’s superrich makes sense given Smith’s account, on the one hand, because of the general tendency to admire and worship the rich. If the wealthiest are punished, so with them goes public opinion, perhaps swaying Putin.... On the other hand, Smith tells us our tendency to admire the rich and great also causes us to look the other way when they behave badly. 

April 12, 2022


Smith posited that there is a moral economy in trade, not just an economic one. We learn what kinds of behaviors are acceptable as we engage in both conversational and material exchange with others.

April 9, 2022


Colleagues Behaving Badly? Adam Smith Suggests Self-Command