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Economic Thought Before Adam Smith

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As the subtitle declares, this work is an overall history of economic thought
from a frankly 'Austrian' standpoint: that is, from the point of view of an
adherent of the 'Austrian School' of economics. This is the only such work
by a modern Austrian; indeed, only a few monographs in specialized areas of
the history of thought have been published by Austrians in recent decades.!
Not only that: this perspective is grounded in what is currently the least
fashionable though not the least numerous variant of the Austrian School: the
'Misesian' or 'praxeologic'.2
But the Austrian nature of this work is scarcely its only singularity. When
the present author first began studying economics in the 1940s, there was an
overwhelmingly dominant paradigm in the approach to the history of economic
thought - one that is still paramount, though not as baldly as in that
era. Essentially, this paradigm features a few Great Men as the essence of the
history of economic thought, with Adam Smith as the almost superhuman
founder. But if Smith was the creator of both economic analysis and of the
free trade, free market tradition in political economy, it would be petty and
niggling to question seriously any aspect of his alleged achievement. Any
sharp criticism of Smith as either economist or free market advocate would
seem only anachronistic: looking down upon the pioneering founder from the
point of view of the superior knowledge of today, puny descendants unfairly
bashing the giants on whose shoulders we stand.
If Adam Smith created economics, much as Athena sprang full-grown and
fully armed from the brow of Zeus, then his predecessors must be foils, little
men of no account. And so short shrift was given, in these classic portrayals
of economic thought, to anyone unlucky enough to precede Smith. Generally
they were grouped into two categories and brusquely dismissed. Immediately
preceding Smith were the mercantilists, whom he strongly criticized. Mercantilists
were apparently boobs who kept urging people to accumulate money
but not to spend it, or insisting that the balance of trade must 'balance' with
each country. Scholastics were dismissed even more rudely, as moralistic
medieval ignoramuses who kept warning that the 'just' price must cover a
merchant's cost of production plus a reasonable prof

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Detail Information

Series Title

Economic Thought Before Adam Smith

Call Number

-

Publisher

USA : Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd.,., 1995

Collation

1-547

Language

English

ISBN/ISSN

0-945466-48-X

Classification

NONE

Content Type

-

Media Type

-

Carrier Type

-

Edition

1st Edition

Subject(s)

Economics

Specific Detail Info

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Statement of Responsibility

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