Moral markets: A marginalistic interpretation of Adam Smith

Walter G. Castro () and Rafael E. Beltramino ()
Additional contact information
Walter G. Castro: Universidad Francisco Marroquín
Rafael E. Beltramino: Universidad del Centro Educativo Latinoamericano

The Review of Austrian Economics, 2018, vol. 31, issue 4, No 3, 419-437

Abstract: Abstract The article is built upon James Otteson's analogy between the structure of moral and economic rules. In Otteson's interpretation of Adam Smith's works both of them develop from an exchange of information of interacting agents. We develop that concept about Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, analyzing those exchanges, and considering them Moral Market processes, in the Austrian Tradition of markets as processes. We think that Smith's emphasis on graduality and his metaphor of the Impartial Spectator allows us to propose a marginalistic approach to those markets stating how, in some of them which we call moral exchanges of justice, and through a great number of exchanges, moral rules of justice emerge. Finally, we present the problems that arise when legislation tries to change the results of these exchanges, in what we called a price control in the moral market.

Keywords: Adam Smith; Moral sentiments; Marginalistic approach; James Otteson; Rational reconstruction (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11138-017-0394-z Abstract (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kap:revaec:v:31:y:2018:i:4:d:10.1007_s11138-017-0394-z

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... ce/journal/11138/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11138-017-0394-z

Access Statistics for this article

The Review of Austrian Economics is currently edited by Peter Boettke and Christopher Coyne

More articles in The Review of Austrian Economics from Springer, Society for the Development of Austrian Economics Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().