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- Title
SCIENCE AND THE LEGISLATOR: ADAM SMITH AND AFTER.
- Authors
Winch, Donald
- Abstract
Adam Smith's description of political economy as 'a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator' proved troublesome to some of his successors and continues to disconcert historians of economic thought. It suggests a form of statecraft that seems to belie the very nature of the Wealth of Nations, whether seen, anachronistically, as a contribution to 'positive' economics, or as a critique of contemporary economic policies from a position that later became known as economic liberalism.1 The description seems uncomfortably reminiscent of the position adopted by Sir James Steuart in a work that Smith himself treated as outmoded by the simple but highly effective expedient of ignoring his Scottish predecessor. Nevertheless, as my choice of title indicates, Smith's description will be taken seriously here, as an accurate statement of his intentions and achievements. The first section of this article will be devoted to a brief statement of the grounds for this position; and it is followed by a section that illustrates and examines the implications of Smith's chosen characterisation. The second half of the article attempts to show how the approach adopted here could be of help in understanding what happened during the crucial period that separates Smith's death in 1970 from the Ricardian reformulation of classical political economy as it emerged after the Napoleonic Wars. A concluding section takes up an issue that has arisen in the secondary literature recently, for whether or not we choose to speak of a 'Ricardo revolution' in describing this period of transition, there seems no reason why, for purposes of historical interpretation at least, we should run to the other extreme by obscuring the differences between Smith and Ricardo and constructing a composite Smith-Ricardo figure out of elements that seem amenable to this objective.2
- Subjects
ECONOMICS; CLASSICAL school of economics; SMITH, Adam, 1723-1790; LEGISLATORS; STATESMEN; POLITICAL science
- Publication
Economic Journal, 1983, Vol 93, Issue 371, p501
- ISSN
0013-0133
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.2307/2232392