 General Introduction: Why Adam Smith?Gavin Kennedy A chapter in Adam Smith, 2008, pp 1-12 from Palgrave Macmillan Abstract: Abstract Graduate economists, thoroughly conversant within the neoclassical paradigm and therefore numerate, who read the first few pages of Wealth of Nations confront an entirely different method of political economy to that which their academic training prepares them. If they persist, they find a literary style (no mathematics) that can be irritatingly obscure, seemingly long-winded and occasionally ambiguous, and given to ‘diversions’ of apparently questionable relevance, certainly when compared to the kinds of problems with which they are familiar. It is unlikely that they have an immediate resonance with Adam Smith’s style of discourse. Yet within his books there is much that may enlighten some of their deeper questions, and some they might find disturbing to their mastery of general equilibrium theory. For today’s economists, Smith’s corpus is the veritable and venerable ‘elephant in the room’: how did modern economics develop from such an unpromising source and why is he credited as the ‘Father of Economics’? Keywords: Political Economy; Moral Philosopher; General Introduction; Complex Adaptive System; Moral Sentiment (search for similar items in EconPapers) There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it. Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:gtechp:978-0-230-22754-5_1 Ordering information: This item can be ordered from Access Statistics for this chapter More chapters in Great Thinkers in Economics from Palgrave Macmillan |
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