Adam Smith and Musgrave’s concept of merit good

In this paper I claim that Adam Smith distinguished between economic activities without labeling these distinctions; and, that those distinctions correspond with the modern concepts of private, public and merit good. Musgrave introduced the concept of merit good, but he himself (and several commentators) limited the applicability of the concept merit good. I argue that a close reading of Adam Smith solidifies the distinction conceptualized by the modern ideas of public and merit good; gives the concept merit good a broader domain of applicability; and makes of the ideas of public and merit good concepts which are ideal concepts, and can therefore be applicable jointly and in degrees to particular economic activities.     

Latin American debt,the IMF,and Adam Smith: A proposal for ethical reform

We examine the role of the IMF orthodox paradigm, and the value system upon which it rests, in the Latin American debt crisis. We conclude that the IMF orthodoxy is an inappropriate basis for international transactions because of the a priori utilitarian value assumptions on which it is based. Furthermore, those value premises have hardened into a narrow and inflexible ideology—similar in nature, if not in content, to Marxist ideology—which has been imposed on indebted Latin American countries. We recommend a value system based on the writings of Adam Smith to replace the value system inherent in the IMF orthodoxy. This value system stresses the inestimable value of all individuals, and we argue that governments and economic institutions must never diminish the happiness of innocent people. We conclude the article with some specific recommendations for reform at the IMF to bring its policies more in line with the moral ideals of Adam Smith.     

Desperately seeking social approval: Adam Smith, Thorstein Veblen and the moral limits of capitalist culture

Adam Smith and Thorstein Veblen shared much in matters of economic ontology. Both dismissed the very notion of an autonomous economic self and instead investigated the processes through which self and other are mutually constituted under changing cultural traditions of individual aspiration. Their strikingly similar critiques of status-oriented consumption and concern for the moral basis of the market economy are established in this manner. However, the political implications of their analyses point in different directions, with Veblen being the more radical. The Smithian individual can always use spectatorial insights to assert through genuinely praiseworthy behaviour personal moral distance from social norms of status-oriented consumption. The Veblenian individual, by contrast, has no such capacity for elevating abstract moral principles above socially-situated conduct, as mind and environment co-evolve in line with changing material circumstances of life. For Veblen, the rise of status-oriented consumption itself acted as a form of moral self-education that more deeply entrenched the social norms of ownership out of which it arose, thus the impossibility of an autonomous economic self was matched by the impossibility of an autonomous moral self. To his way of thinking, moral degradation in conspicuous consumption was irredeemably inscribed into the whole cultural structure of capitalism.     

Putting Adam Ferguson in his place

This paper re-conceptualizes the relationship between Ferguson's life and work by locating him in his biographical and geographical context for the purposes of better understanding his proto-sociological writings. Ferguson's work is relatively unknown outside limited sets of literature and current representations of the link between his life and work risk misplacing him as both Scotsman and sociologist. The popular portrayal suggests there is a strong connection between his Highland background and his famous book An Essay on the History of Civil Society. It will be argued that this claim reproduces the social construction of space in Scottish society and is based on stereotypical views of his birthplace and upbringing. Ferguson did not construct an autobiographical narrative to offer his own understanding of the link between his life and work. This reflects the strengths and weaknesses of sociology as it was developing in the eighteenth century. The 'self' was not recognized as an object of intention or symbolic construction. Ferguson's writings analysed modernity as it was emerging in eighteenth-century Lowland Scotland and contrary to common opinion, there was no self-identity as a Highlander to shape his understanding of that social process.     

The social psychology of Adam and Eve

Conclusion I am arguing for three links between the biblical creation myth and social theory. First, I am arguing that, by exploiting the story for the social psychological ideas that can be drawn out of it, we have a rich way to appreciate the nuances of the myth. By treating Adam and Eve as a parsimonious and memorable form of sociological theorizing, we can effectively appreciate the elaborate, highly tuned, richly coherent, and subtle structure of the myth. We can answer a series of initially enigmatic questions about the logic of the story, and in the process we can bring out some of its neglected features, such as the burden in the final gift. Here empirical theory serves to clarify the hermeneutics of a powerfully appealing element of cultural life.Next, reversing the perspective, we can reveal the myth as a testable empirical theory. In this article, I can only suggest the promise of such a theory. But this operation draws out theoretical ideas about emotions - such as their dualistic and dialectical character - that are difficult to summarize elegantly without the aid of the symbolic powers of mythical narrative and that point empirical investigation in new directions.Third, there is the empirical question of the impressive resonance of the story of Adam and Eve. I am arguing that the everyday emergence and decline of emotions, in typically brief, typically inconsequential, social interactional episodes, parallels the metamorphosis described in Genesis. This parallel indicates a ground for the appeal of this creation myth wherever people structure their emotions into socially situated forms, wherever falls, literal or figurative, can lead alternatively to shame, laughter, crying, or anger. The narrative structure of everyday emotions is surely not the only nor the most important basis of the appeal of Adam and Eve, but there is a grounding for the resonance of the story, a tacit basis for its pervasive appeal, in the stories that we corporeally convey as we construct socially situated episodes of shame, laughter, anger, and crying.Something similar was argued by the English and German literary and philosophical Romantics but their claims were far more ambitious. They frequently appreciated biblical stories such as those of the Fall from paradise, the prodigal son, and the tearing of Christ from communal embrace and eventual resurrection, not as history or allegory but as proto-scientific summaries of ongoing human realities. In M. H. Abrams's review, the Romantic tendency was... to naturalize the supernatural and to humanize the divine. All the figures and events of the bible were to be seen and felt within you.My position in this essay is neither so grand nor so optimistic. I am arguing that emotions in everyday social life describe a metamorphosis of fall, chaos, and an attempt at graceful reintegration, but not that this process describes all of social life, much less all of history, nor even that it describes what is most fundamental, best, or most elevating in life, as the Romantics might have said. For Schiller, the Fall was fortunate because it led to a spiral ascent toward a paradise more grand than the one Adam lost. Our situated emotions routinely lead back to the banalities from which they emerged. Moreover, much of emotional life does not necessarily take the form of bounded narrative episodes; indeed much of what may be most important about social life, in any number of senses, is not characterized by the bouts of crying and anger, phases of shameful feeling, and moments of laughter that this essay addresses. But the story of Eden resonates elaborately in emotionally colorful moments within the mundane prose of routine interaction, just as those sensually vivid experiences are narrated in corporeally distinctive ways. Revisiting Genesis, we can grasp its wisdom reverberating through the workings of emotions in everyday social life.     

Bourdieu, Smith and disinterested judgement

The paper presents a sympathetic critique of Bourdieu7rsquo;s work in terms of the tension between its critical intentions and its leanings towards sociological reductionism. Although Bourdieu argues against such reductionism in his methodological pronouncements, his empirical studies tend to reduce actors' putative disinterested judgements to functions of their habitus in relation to the social field and to unconscious strategies of distinction. Further, his concept of (non-monetary) forms of capital occludes the difference between use-value and exchange-value and the corresponding distinction between the pursuit of goods and the pursuit of distinction, which are vital for both explanation and critique. Moreover his suspicion of normative judgement on the part of social science and his concealment of his own normative standpoint subvert his critiques. Thus in relation to Bourdieu's analysis of the role of mis-recognition in social life I argue that this requires a delineation of the extent of justified recognition. In developing the argument I draw upon Adam Smith's analysis of moral sentiments and his critique of undeserved recognition and the pursuit of distinction. Where Bourdieu is dismissive about moral issues, Smith treats moral sentiments as irreducible to interest or instrumental action and as a significant element in the reproduction of social order. The paper concludes with some implications for the nature of critique in social theory.     

《哈克贝利费恩历险记》中主人公的原型分析

从神话原型的角度出发,把亚当与作品中男主人公哈克贝利放在一起剖析,从而揭示哈克贝利的道德觉醒过程。《哈克贝利费恩历险记》这部作品是美国梦的典型体现。美国梦是美国人民的人生追求,也是美国社会进步的源泉和发展动力。而美国梦在圣经中的原型就是重建伊句园。而作为男主人公的亚当向往自由,勇于开拓,这与哈克贝利强烈的主体意识和对自由的不懈追求特征完全一致,这也正是本文将二者结合的切入点。     

Consensus on Culture in American Sociology: Reply to Smith

In his contribution to this issue, Smith argues that sociology’s house of culture is built on a foundation of sand. In my brief response to Smith, I dispute the claim that culture is in trouble and question the methods and motives behind Smith’s critique. I then indicate the common ground characterizing the work of contemporary culture scholars. Drawing upon my fieldnotes and observations of culture in action, I define culture as a suprasubjective system of signification creating intersubjective senses or ideas that are distinct from the materiality, function, immediacy, or face value of any particular people, objects, words, thoughts, and actions. I argue that this culture concept, which I see as theoretically consistent with the work of most cultural sociologists and sociologists of culture, satisfies many of Smith’s requirement that an acceptable culture concept specify culture’s location, powers, limits, and relationship to subjectivity, and clearly theorize meaning and its relationship to culture.     

Vernon Smith: economics as a laboratory science

Vernon Smith shared the Nobel Prize in 2002 with Daniel Kahneman. This article surveys Smith’s contributions to economics. His early efforts led to greater understanding of markets and market institutions, which developed into important contributions to the design of new markets. Subsequent research focused on the complexity of behavior in simple games, including recent forays into “neuroeconomics”. The impact of his work on economic thinking and economic theory is substantial.