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Invisible Hand: Adam Smith's Political Economy

Abstract
Adam Smith is one of the mostly widely read eighteenth-century thinkers, enjoying a scholar reputation among economist, social scientists, political theorists, as well as philosophers. It is frequently believed that the great eighteenth-century Scottish moral philosophy Adam Smith was an extreme dogmatic defender of laissez-faire.
It seems clear that Adam Smith has undergone an ideologically based reinterpretation. Smith¡¦s ¡¨invisible hand¡¨ , the most famous metaphor in economics and social science, has been identical with the automatic equilibrating mechanism of the competitive market. Free-market exchanges can unintentionally produce economic well-being, but only under certain specific conditions. Smith¡¦s thesis is that the invisible hand works because, and only when, people operate with restrains self-interest in cooperation with others under the precepts of justice. I found that public spirit, or civic virtue was, for Smith, a vitally important aspect of political economy. I noted that for Smith all constitutions must be judged by the happiness of the people who live under them. Thus, government plays the read role in securing the common good in society.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0830101-145000
Date30 August 2001
CreatorsHuang, Chi-Se
Contributorsnone, none, none
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0830101-145000
Rightsnot_available, Copyright information available at source archive

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