Adam Smith’s Prudence

Amartya Sen

Chapter 2 in Theory and Reality in Development, 1986, pp 28-37 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Shakespeare did not say it, but it is true that some men are born small, some achieve smallness, and some have smallness thrust upon them. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, has had to cope with a good deal of such thrusting. That conclusion is inescapable, reading some of the recent pronouncements of conservative extremism (especially in Britain), with persistent attempts to implicate Adam Smith in justifying the straight and the narrow. The invoking of Adam Smith and ‘the invisible hand’ is a widespread phenomenon, varying from explicit attribution to implicit use of Smith’s authority (in, say, the spirited outpourings of the so-called ‘Adam Smith Institute’).

Keywords: Moral Sentiment; Impartial Spectator; Conservative Extremism; Persistent Attempt; Public Spirit (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 1986
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-349-18128-5_2

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DOI: 10.1007/978-1-349-18128-5_2

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