Adam Smith’s foundational idea of sympathetic persuasion1

Leonidas Montes

Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2019, vol. 43, issue 1, 1-15

Abstract: This paper investigates the rather neglected relevance of persuasion in Smith’s corpus and its foundational character. Smith’s permanent and comprehensive concern with persuasion pervades his entire legacy. But, fully aware of the risks of this strong ‘human desire’ or ‘instinct’ to ‘lead and direct other people’, Smith develops what can be labelled as sympathetic persuasion. The moral, political and economic implications of Smith’s persuasion provide a common, consistent and foundational concept for his ideal of a civilized and free society. Finally, this interpretation of the importance of Smith’s persuasion allows us to overcome the famous Das Adam Smith Problem.

Keywords: Adam Smith; Persuasion; Sympathy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1093/cje/bex090 (application/pdf)
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:oup:cambje:v:43:y:2019:i:1:p:1-15.

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://academic.oup.com/journals

Access Statistics for this article

Cambridge Journal of Economics is currently edited by Jacqui Lagrue

More articles in Cambridge Journal of Economics from Cambridge Political Economy Society Oxford University Press, Great Clarendon Street, Oxford OX2 6DP, UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Oxford University Press ().