Jason Goldberg - Winner of the Lost Legacy Monthly Prize

Students usual preach what their tutors teach (who got what they teach from their tutors, and so on back to the fount from which the original teacher taught the first class of students). Unfortunately, in the neoclassical economics stream that emanated from the University of Chicago aeons ago, the students were too busy to read Wealth Of Nations for themselves, sitting, as they were, and as used to be said, ‘at the feet’ of brilliant professors (an allusion I believe to how the ancient Greeks were taught by their masters), and they absorbed the false messages they were given about Adam Smith.

What an unexpected delight it was therefore to read a student computer science major at the University of Texas at Austin, a Jason Goldberg, on the subject of Adam Smith. He didn’t make a single error in his exposition of Smith on the trade balance.

I shall not quote it because I think you should read it for yourself. It is a rarity in academe today. No non-sense about invisible hands, nothing about Smith advocating laissez-faire (Jason even criticises contemporary Republicans and Democrats for believing he did), nothing about Smith and labour as a measure of value, nothing in fact with which I or anybody else familiar with Wealth Of Nations would quibble.

More Jason Goldbergs please. It has fair made my day.

[Read Jason Goldberg’s essay at:
http://media.www.dailytexanonline.com/media/storage/paper410/news/2007/03/08/Opinion/Balancing.The.Trade.Imbalance-2764736.shtml]