JUST PUBLISHED: "PROPRIETY AND PROSPERITY:"

PROPRIETY AND PROSPERITY: new studies on the Philosophy of Adam Smith, edited by David F. Hardwick and Leslie Marsh, Forward by Vernon Smith, Palgrave Macmillan, 2014.

Included in the 14 chapters by the contributors is mine: Chapter 11: ‘The Invisible Hand Phenomenon in Economics’, pp. 198- 222, one of 4 chapters on the ‘invisible hand’.

Readers may not be surprised to note that my four colleagues writing on the invisible-hand take different approaches to the one I take on Lost Legacy. I may comment on their approaches on the Blog.

There is also chapter 14 by my friend and colleague, Craig Smith, Glasgow University: ‘Smith, Justice, and the Scope of the Political’.

NEW PAPER IN PRODUCTION: Adam Smith on “Self Betterment, Self-Interest, the Invisible- Hand, intended and Unintended consequences”

Presently, I am working on a paper resolving, I hope, the controversy of what Adam Smith meant by using the “invisible-hand” metaphor, which while it may not surprise many readers, and may provoke a few sighs of “so what” from those well familar with the Lost Legacy Blog, it certainly  enthuses me.

Perceptive visitors may note that I have not posted since 17 February, which is rather long for me and for which I apologise. The absence of posts is down to a lot of background reading I have recently undertaken, both in Adam Smith’s “Lectures On Retoric” (1762-3) and his “Lectures On Jurisprudence” (1762-3), as well as his two publishd books, “Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759) and “Wealth Of Nations” (1776), and a fair selection of books by modern authors in Anthropology and Archeology (examples: Chris Skinner. 2011, “The Origins of Our Species”, Allen Lane and Cypprean Broodbank, , 2013. "The Making of the Middle Sea: a history of the Mediterarranean from the beginning to the emergence of the classical world". London: Thames & Hudson.

Smith was interested in the origins of humanity as a distinct species, of which in his day, knowledge was limited, as well as knowledge of evolution, except in the prevalent theological fantasies of the Eden Garden, dated supposedly by Bishop Usher as 4004 BCE (compare my papers on Smith’s supposed views on theology: Kennedy, G. (2011b) ‘The Hidden Adam Smith in his Alleged Theology’, Journal of the History of Economic Thought, vol. 33 (3), September, 385-402; Kennedy, G. 2015. ‘Adam Smith on Religion’ in C. Berry, M. Paganelli and C. Smith, eds. pp. 464-84. The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 

I am now composing my paper: Kennedy, G. “Adam Smith on “Self Betterment, Self-Interest, the Invisible- Hand, intended and Unintended consequences”. It should be availble, hopefully in weeks, for publication, but in the meantime, as professional journal publications usually take from 18 months to two years to become available (I know this because I referee for such journals and by the time the referees sort out their, often contradictory comments, and editors choose which issue it should appear in, if at all, time goes by). I shall therefore post it on the (free) Social Science Research Network (SSRN) site within weeks of my concluding my work. My thinking for using this route is influenced by my 75th birthday last week and my general state of health, and a desire to read any feedback it may occasion.

Should any reader wish to receive notice on how my paper may be accessed in a couple of weeks or so, please send me a message and I shall arrange to do so, once the arrangements are made. Of course, readers’ comments are welcome, with the single proviso that their content conforms to the usual scholarly norms, appropriate for members the Academy. I can take harsh criticism, but cannot be bothered with personal abuse.

LOONY TUNES NO. 110

11

1

NOAH BERLATSKY posts 17 February on The Atlantic HERE

“Adam Smith's invisible hand is a big paw of pleasure; the thing that pushes you willingly into capitalism's sacrificial maw is your own desire.”

2

Robbie Dinwoodies posts (19 February) HERE

"Handing out loyalty penalties”

“So why is it that that Adam Smith's invisible hand turns into a withered stump when it comes to so many suppliers of the other necessities of life such as financial services and public utilities?”

Comment

a.k.a metamorphising a metaphor!

3

Bloomberg View (19 Feb) on AZER NEWS HERE  and HERE 

“Oil Prices Set by Invisible hand”

“But the price of oil is another matter. That's going to depend on the headlines that reflect those national interests and technological advances -- or perhaps some new short term factors of the day. Traders rarely lack explanations for the numbers that skip across their screens.”

Comment

Yup! It’s the numbers, otherwise known as VISIBLE prices, that set the price of oil. There is no need for, and no such entity as “an INVISIBLE hand”. 

That’s just mumbo-jumbo speak from smart asses who make their money by getting between other guys with money and the VISIBLE prices in front of every bodys eyes. (Scottish proverb: “there’s none so blind as those who dinnae see”).

A CLASH OF IDEOLOGIES BUT A STEP IN THE APPROPRIATE DIRECTION

“Blood” posts (15 Feb)  on “Daily Kos” HERE

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/02/15/1364367/-On-Adam-Smith-s-Invisible-Hand#

On Adam Smith’s Invisible Hand”

[Follow the link - it's too long to reproduce fairly].

Comment

“Blood’s” account is as thorough as it goes, but it is riven with leftist ideological prejudices as tiresome to read as the ideological prejudiecs of rightest ideologues, who argue the opposite tiresome cliches which “Blood” feels so strongly about. 
Do ideologues ever stand back and think about how their non-idelogical readers, whom presumably they are trying to influence, might react to what the've written? Do ideologues ever read the mirror-images of their leftist/rightist assertions from those to whom they are diametrically opposed? Probably not.
Its been some time since I read an Angry Bear post, to which I was once invited to contribute but got hammered by a correspondent who had no sense of history or of the evolution of law over the long history to which we were receded. After a couple of exchanges, I realised I was talking to a relatively uninformed ideologue every bit as ill-informed as the rightist ideologues with whom I tussle with regularly on Lost Legacy.

“Blood” acccouns for Adam Smith’s use on the “invisible hand” metaphor with accurate quotations from Adam Smith’s “Moral Sentiments” (1759) and “Wealth Of Nations” (1776), underlining his/her claim to have read both, which is more than the normal exponents have done who assert what Smith allegedly meant. But the good work “Blood” does in this respect is completely undermined with “Blood’s” aside that “Their outrageous highjacking of Enlightenment thinkers like Smith is an intellectual crime that long ago would have been prosecuted in a healthy and politically engaged society.”  
Really? Oh Dear! This is an appalling indictment of “Blood’s” ideology. What kind of Enlightenment thinking does “Blood” think he/she expresses in that explicit threat? What happened to free speech and liberty? Which recent society has he/she got in mind as a model for the society he/she wishes to live in? Is it modelled on today’s Venezuela? or post-war McCarthy’s USA?

Now Lost Legacy has posted much on Adam Smith’s use of the invisible hand since 2005 and a glance down the posts for the last six months show how close “Blood” has come to understanding what Smith was about. Smith spent a large part of Book IV of WN castigating ('violently" in Smith's words) the use of tariffs, prohibitions, blockades and warfare to prevent countries trading, thereby reducing domestic competition and raising domestic prices against consumers. Smith called these practices mercantile political economy. Incidently, the state monopoly of trade - common to all experience of ‘socialist’ governments - is a version of mercantile economics, producing the same result of relative poverty or the mass of the people, though the political elite escaped the rationing that their economic policies caused..

Smith’s uses of the IH metaphor were not solely focussed on market economies.  With fall of Rome in the 5th century, western Europe's early markets withered away, replaced by War-Lordism and, eventually  Feudalism, out of which commercial  markets re-emerged from the 14th century, amidst a great deal of general poverty. Agriculture  therefore existed for many millennia before markets emerged. When Smith referred to “since providence divided the land” he was covering a large slice of Human experience (though 'providence' had nothing to do with it). His attempt to show that these policies were benficial to labourers was, of course, a fable agreed upon. The relationship of “rich” landlords and their peasants were unequal. Landlords enslaved labourers and shared some of the produce of their labourers’ hard work, supervised by unfeeling overseers. Economically this relationshp developed the exchange relationship that landlords fed their labourers unequally from the produce their labourers produced and landlords which lived off the bulk of it. In real time and for many generations and in the long run, this relationship enabled the procreation of the species, which Smith counted as a social benefit. 
Those societes that did not resort to agriculture (i.e., the greater part of the world's human species) experienced a lower and precarious standard of living from hunting and gathering, and its populations expanded very slowly, if at all.  But agriculture and other landed ectivities (mining, particularly) developed simple technologies (crop rotation, water coursing) and also fostered early market possibilities - mainly "luxuries" - from extra-territorial trade (shipping, navigation) and, of course, dynastic warfare).  Richard Cantillon (1735) provided a more realsitic view of the division of the land that saw it as violent expropriation, leading to primogeniture, dynastic wars with rivals for thrones, which had nothing to with providence, a wholly mythical piece of theological fantasy..

Which leads us back to the "invisible hand". Briefly, Smith used the IH metaphor to “describe in a more stiking and interesting manner” (see Smith's "Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres" 1763 , p.29), a course he taught from 1748 to 1764), describing the cause of human motivations that led them to actions for intended consequences (Labourers for their daily food and landlords for their aspirations of local “greatness’). Their motivated actions also had unintended consequences, some, of course, negative (slavery, warfare) and some positive (slightly higher living standards than provided by hunting and gathering, hence population growth, if they avoided wars, diseases, and plagues).  His second example referred to those European merchants after the 16th century who were risk-averse to foriegn trade, their motives led them to keep their capital safer by their intended actions, and these two had unintended consequences, some good (higher domestic revenue and employment) and some bad (protectinionist actions and warfare in hostilities towards neighbours).

I suggest “Blood” thinks about what Smith was actually about and becomes wary of ill-thought theories in pursuit of an ideological chimera.

“Blood” concludes: “Adam Smith ... has been unfairly used and abused by the Right Wing long enough.”  I completely agree! With respect, Smith has also been “used and abused by the Right and the Leftwing together for long enough".

ONCE MORE ON SMITHIAN BARGAINING BY A TOP OF CLASS DEBATER

Dr Madsen Pirie of the Adam Smith Institute posts (11 February) on the ASI Blog HERE  one of his high-value - and always brief - gems on economics.  He is posting a series of his statements exposing everyday wisdom that we read, often from senior scholars too, similar to what Lost Legacy counters on its Blog every week.  In the case I quote below, Pirie exposes the nonsense in a few sentences, whereas I normally can take a page or more when quoting Adam Smith’s clear refutation of the myths on this particular subject. So it is a pleasure to show a professional debater at work:

“Economic Nonsense: 3 [by Dr Madsen Pirie:] 

“There has to be a winner in every bargain”

“This is not true, and is based on the false zero sum game fallacy.  The assumption behind it is that value is fixed, so that if someone gains more of it, someone else will obtain less.  People commonly ask who gets the best of a bargain, wrongly assuming that one party gains at the expense of the other.

In fact, value is not a fixed property of objects, but something in the mind of those who think about them.  People are different and they value things differently; and value is not fixed or in limited supply.  When a voluntary exchange takes place it is because each party puts greater value on what the other party has than they put upon what they are ready to trade for it.  When the trade takes place, each party acquires something they value more than what they already had.  Both gain in value; this is how wealth is created.

It is not a case of one party winning and the other losing.  Rather is it a win-win situation in which both parties have added value to their lives.

Just as both usually gain in a voluntary bargain between people, so do both sides usually gain in a freely-entered exchange between nations.  People in one country trade what they have in return for what they value more from the other country.  Both become wealthier as a result.  It is trade and exchange that makes countries wealthier, not trying to accumulate precious metals or plundering wealth from others.  When countries abandoned the idea that they could grow rich at the expense of others, the world’s wealth began to grow dramatically.  Trade has made everyone winners.”

[Follow the Link above and read Dr Pirie’s atriculate exposition on a range of economic topics on the Adam Smith Institue Blog]

Disclosure: I am a Fellow of the ASI.

PODCAST DEBATE ON ADAM SMITH'S USE OF THE INVISIBLE HAND METAPHOR

Introductory Comments

I came across this short essay this week from Larry Wilmore’s Blog Thought du jour (Semi-daily posts, related largely to economics and government policy) HERE

http://larrywillmore.net/blog/2015/01/24/adam-smiths-invisible-hand/

I know two of the speakers in the podcast, academic Marianne Johnson, who assisted Warren Samuels, while he was very seriously ill, in preparing his final manuscript of “Erasing the Invisible Hand: essays on an elusive and misused concept in economics” (2011. Cambridge University Press), and  Eamonn Butler, Director of the Adam Smith Institute (London), a well known and renowned figure in Smithian modern economics and its applications in the 21st century. (Disclosure: I am a Fellow of the ASI).

Below is a straight summary of the Podcast discussion subjects intended for the illuminating the commentator’s discussion. 

I would finally point out here that the statement by Benjamen Walker that: “The History of Astronomy (written before 1758, but published in 1811)” is incorrect. It was first published  as “The Principles which lead and direct Philosophical Enquiries illustrated by the History of Astonomy”, in 1795 and not as asserted in 1811. 

The first, 1795 edition of The History of Atronomy was prepared by James Black and James Hutton who were directed by Adam Smith on his death bed to publish it and not to burn it with most of his other unfinished manuscripts of his life’s work, just before his death in 1790, with which instructions they complied in 1795.

The 1811 edition was published by Dugald Stewart, a family friend of Adam Smith’s, the son of Professor Michael Stewart, Edinburgh University, who was a student friend of Smth’s at Glasgow University, 1737-40, and remained close to him as a friend as an adult. Dugald Stewart published a volume, containing the Astronomy Essay, as Volume V of his edition of Smith’s Works in 1811 (in which edition Stewart somewhat sneekily removed the names of both Black and Hutton the original editors).

As Thought du jour’s introductory statements are fairly neutral, I shall not discuss them on this occasion. (Regular readers will be familiar with my critique).

Thought du jour’s Report:

Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’

What, exactly, is the “invisible hand”, a phrase attributed to Adam Smith? Is it a sound economic principle or a myth propagated by the misreading of Smith? All this continues to attract controversy. If you are interested, I recommend a lucid, 12-minute podcast on the topic. You can access it without charge, courtesy of  The Guardian newspaper, at the link below.

When we asked you to nominate some intellectual cliches for this series earlier this year, Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” cropped up repeatedly ….

In the third episode of The Big Ideas, Benjamen Walker discusses the meaning and uses of Smith’s concept with philosopher John Gray, academic Marianne Johnson, economist Eamonn Butler and Guardian columnist Polly Toynbee. ….

As we mention in the podcast, Smith himself only used the phrase “invisible hand” sparingly. ….

Benjamin Walker, “The Big Ideas podcast: Adam Smith’s ‘invisible hand’“, The Guardian Comment is Free podcast, 6 October 2011.

Smith did use the term ‘invisible hand’ quite sparingly. It appears only once in each of three published works, for a grand total of three times.

In The History of Astronomy (written before 1758, but published in 1811), Smith writes that there is no need to resort to the supernatural, to “the invisible hand of Jupiter”, to explain natural phenomena:

Fire burns, and water refreshes; heavy bodies descend, and lighter substances fly upwards, by the necessity of their own nature; nor was the invisible hand of Jupiter ever apprehended to be employed in those matters. [Emphasis added.]

The phrase appears a second time in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), in paragraph 10 of the first and only chapter of part IV:

The rich … consume little more than the poor, and in spite of their natural selfishness and rapacity, though they mean only their own conveniency, though the sole end which they propose from the labours of all the thousands whom they employ, be the gratification of their own vain and insatiable desires, they divide with the poor the produce of all their improvements. They are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species. [Emphasis added.]

His third and last use of the phrase is in book IV, chapter 2, paragraph 9 of The Wealth of Nations (1776):

By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it. 

UNFAIR TO BLAME GORDON BROWN FOR KIRKCALDY'S DECLINING LOCAL SHOPS

TM Cross writes (10 February) to The Herald, a national newspaper from Glasgow, covering Scotland. He berates the sitting MP, Gordon Brown, Kirkcaldy’s second most famous son, who was actually born in Glasgow, and Adam Smith, of course Kirkcaldy’s most famous son, born in Kirkcaldy (1723), HERE  whom Cross b;ames: “Gordon Brown must take some blame for the decline of Kirkcaldy”

As a native Langtonian [The 'langtoon' is a local, traditional name for Kirkcaldy's  singular long-length, because of its main west-east High Street] I was not overly surprised at the Tesco closure ("Every little helps as shoppers plan rally to save Tesco store", The Herald, February 9).

I have written in The Herald a long time ago pointing out the holistic decline of the once-substantial retail centre that was the very long Kirkcaldy High Street.

I also apportioned blame on the long-sitting MP, Gordon Brown, who while "saving the global economy" let the very heart of the "toon" atrophy into a commercial ghetto.

There is a sad serendipity in this tale of failed commercial and political planning. Almost across the street from the departing Tesco in the very centre of the once proud street sits the site of Adam Smith's Kirkcaldy home in which it is alleged he wrote his substantial work An Inquiry into Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nation. Though an advocate of the "invisible hand" he would have railed at Mr Brown's failure to use the substantial market-shaping powers he once possessed.

Mr Brown stood by while near-monopoly giants like Tesco were killing off the plural retail market that had produced the very commercial environment that made the High Street attractive to Tesco in the first place.

He watched year in year out for more than 25 years the steady decline of the High Street, where even the many of the 14 (I counted them) charity shops are closing.

His Prime Minister status and his global charity roles were predicated on the support he received from the good people of Kirkcaldy (and Cowdenbeath) who elected him as their MP. His last-minute attempts to retain Tesco and so save the High Street is another "saviour" political intervention that he has deployed (with some success) in his post-state-power personal messianic mission period.”

Comment

I have had many disagreements over the years with Gordon Brown, since out student days in the 60s and 70s, though we always remained on good personal terms, despite our different perspectives of what is best for Scotland (I voted 'yes' and Gordon led the 'No' campaign.

In respect of the above, fairs fair. Gordon cannot be blamed for the same things that happened in every town in Scotland, let alone in Kirkcaldy (and incidently, across much of Europe and North America), with the rapid phenonmenon of out-of-town major hyper- and super-markets that caused the rapid decline in local, in-town traditional high street shopping facilities. This created a serious planning problem in a regulatory world that insists on regulations for almost everything. These regulations tend to be administered by local, not national, governments and local town councillors decide on their priorities.

Gordon Brown’s political career was centred on national UK, not local, government. His only local interest was in continuing to get elected in national UK elections and his relations with locally-centred politicans was viewed, primarily, from that perspective only. Therefore, the major factors in Brown’s political career were focussed on national and international politics (for which he was responsible) and not on local politics, for which he was not responsible.

Postscript: I am unsure why TM Cross refers to: “the site of Adam Smith's Kirkcaldy home in which it is alleged he wrote his substantial work An Inquiry into Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations”.

There is no doubt that Smith wrote of the bulk of the Wealth Of Nations while at his mother’s Kirkcaldy home in the High Street. We know from student notes of his Jurisprudence lectures made in 1762-3 which include some near verbatim passages that re-appeared later in Wealth Of Nations in 1776, mainly in the early parts of this book, and that the majority of the longer parts of his magnum opus must have been written when he returned home to Kirkcaldy in 1767 to research and write, using his vast library, which he had accumulated while teaching at Glasgow University from 1751 to 64 and then shipped home to Kirkcaldy after he left Glasgow for France (1764-6)  and was in London for much of 1767. There was also no way in the 18th century that he could have carried such library to France and back; even shipping it safely from Glasgow to Kirkcaldy without trusted and efficient efficient supervision (his mother and his aunt and close friends).   

Given the thousands of detailed references and statistics included in Wealth Of Nations, we can be pretty sure he wrote almost all of his book in Kirkcaldy, with his library to hand, except for his relatively small, though important, comments on the ‘American’ question, as it unfolded from 1773 to 1775. I refer TM Cross to Ian Ross’s, definitive biography: ‘The Life of Adam Smith’, Oxford University Press’.

Finally, given Gordon Brown's status of being out of office and his non-attendance in the Westminster Parliament, and his recent interest in local affairs (the decline of Kirkcaldy's High Street) he probably has more time for local affairs, as shown in his initiatives in pushing for investment in developing Kirkcaldy's location as Smith's birthplace and restoring his mother's walled garden (her 18th-century house was demolished and replaced in mid-19th century) and centring its post restoration on an 'Adam Smith' trail and an annual local festival of conferences and education activities.   

LOONY TUNES No. 109

1

“Jazz Shaw” posts (7 Feb) on USA Today HERE 

“Flying the unfriendly skies”

“The invisible hand of the market gets tied behind its back when there is no semblance of actual competition. I just had to shop for airline tickets this week and could find virtually no difference in price for the times and dates I needed to travel. …This has been my experience over and over again.

Customers ultimately determine pricing, voting with their wallets every day on what they value and are willing to pay for. That is the marketplace at work.”

Comment

It sure is in the ONLY way that markets CAN work by using VISIBLE prices from which customers can decide to pay or not pay.  

It has nothing to do with INVISIBLE HANDS “tied [by whom?] behind their back! 

2

Kieran Corcoran writes for the Daily Mail HERE 

“Revealed: How 'invisible hand' of social convention dictates the rise and fall of baby names over the decades”.

3

James M Flanagan posts on his Blog HERE 

“The Invisible Hand has a whip in it. It's the hand of servitude.”
4

Merce Cardus posts  HERE and HERE 

“Give A Rose On Valentine’s Day As A Symbol Of Love and A Global Cooperation By The Invisible Hand”

“Because a rose is not just a symbol of love; it’s also a symbol of global coooperation  coordinated by the invisible hand”. 

NOT LOONY BUT WRONG!

I came across this book by Paul A. Cantor this morning from Google Alerts (a most useful source on “invisible hands”) and my first thought was that it was a candidate for Lost Legacy’s  “Loony Tunes” irregular column. But reading on I realised it was meant seriously, though not, in my view, really relevant to our debate.

What the author means by the invisible hand is not as a Smithian metaphor; he refers, instead to the IH in its post-Samuelson sense as a so-called catch-all phrase for the current meaning of free-market, laissez-faire capitalism in which the role government is the enemy of hard Libertarianism.

The Book

 “The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV” by Paul A. Cantor, The University Press of Kentucky (2012).

The Book’s Blurb:

“Popular culture often champions freedom as the fundamentally American way of life and celebrates the virtues of independence and self-reliance. But film and television have also explored the tension between freedom and other core values, such as order and political stability. What may look like healthy, productive, and creative freedom from one point of view may look like chaos, anarchy, and a source of destructive conflict from another. Film and television continually pose the question: Can Americans deal with their problems on their own, or must they rely on political elites to manage their lives?

In this groundbreaking work, Paul A. Cantor explores the ways in which television shows such as Star Trek, The X-Files, South Park, and Deadwood and films such as The Aviator and Mars Attacks! have portrayed both top-down and bottom-up models of order. Drawing on the works of John Locke, Adam Smith, Alexis de Tocqueville, and other proponents of freedom, Cantor contrasts the classical liberal vision of America -- particularly its emphasis on the virtues of spontaneous order -- with the Marxist understanding of the "culture industry" and the Hobbesian model of absolute state control.

The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture concludes with a discussion of the impact of 9/11 on film and television, and the new anxieties emerging in contemporary alien-invasion narratives: the fear of a global technocracy that seeks to destroy the nuclear family, religious faith, local government, and other traditional bulwarks against the absolute state.”

One of the book’s reviewer’s comments:

“Ryan’s” Amazon Review (6 May 2013:) HERE: “Ryan’s” Amazon Review (6 May 2013)

“Cantor, an expert on Shakespeare and a professor of English at the University of Virginia, has again returned to the topic of television and film with his new book The Invisible Hand in Popular Culture: Liberty vs. Authority in American Film and TV, and further expands on the topics of globalization, markets, and state power first presented in his 2001 book Gilligan Unbound.

This new volume is even more substantial than the previous one, featuring ten essays on film and television ranging from UFO movies to Westerns to South Park. In addition, the introduction provides an extensive discussion on the very nature of pop culture, how it is produced, and how it should be interpreted.

Written in clear language for the curious layman, but carefully footnoted for the scholar, Invisible Hand helps us look in a new way at the images on the screen that undeniably have an enormous effect on the viewer's notions of history, government, freedom, and the human experience.

Cantor begins by explaining the conflict between liberty and authority by looking at two distinct and opposing options in the Western genre offered by the television shows 'Have Gun - Will Travel' (1957-1963) and 'Deadwood' (2004-2006).

'Have Gun' provides the (conventional and authoritarian) view offered by Westerns, and as Cantor notes, the show's hero Paladin imposes order on a frontier composed largely of racist rubes, petty tyrants and superstitious fools. Every town, it seems, has a lynch mob, and the "unending sequence of tyrannical rich men" in 'Have Gun' sets the stage for many showdowns between the enlightened and refined hero Paladin and his backward enemies.

Paladin, Cantor notes, looks remarkably like the members of the ruling class in Washington D.C.

Comment

It was of course inevitable that once the non-Smithian fable that Smith’s wholly innocent use of the “invisible-hand” metaphor was transmuted by some classsical economists into “laissez-faire” markets (for ‘merchants and manufacturers’ - but sadly not for consumers), followed later by neo-classical economists into an alleged miraculous property of ‘capitalism’ and the original error would be compounded when non-economists re-applied the notion to their own subject specialisms. Hence Professor Cantor’s innocent contributions, which while interesting are not really funny enough for Loony Tunes.

[A correspondent has chastised me for spelling Loony Tunes without and 'e'. I am always grateful for helpful readers correcting errors but my reasons for spelling 'Loony' without and 'e' is to avert any litigious claims that I am using a protected copyright title from the owners of the popular film/tv cartoon programme's use of Looney with an 'e'. OK?]

Loony Tunes no. 108

1

Thom Tillis (3 Feb) on Scoopnest (Beta) at CNN HERE http://t.co/ALYppYpsIk http://t.co/7qQGIzVYSL says:

“The invisible hand may control the free market -- but it may not be washed”.

2

Melissa McEwan (3 February) posts on Shakesville HERE http://www.shakesville.com/2015/02/the-invisible-hand-of-market-is-covered.html

“The Invisible Hand of the Market is covered in Pee”

“The Republicans really hate science. … Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) argued this week that restaurants should be able to "opt out" of health department regulations that require employees to wash their hands after using the bathroom.

..."I don't have any problem with Starbucks if they choose to opt out of this policy as long as the post a sign that says 'We don't require our employees to wash their hands after leaving the restrooms.' The market will take care of that.”

3

‘Tammany Tiger’ (5 February) in Caucas99percent posts HERE http://caucus99percent.com/blog/drupal/content/week-stupid-germ-laden-invisible-hand

“This Week in Stupid: The Germ-Laden Invisible Hand”

“Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC), a member of the Republican Class of 2014, wasted little time in amping up his party’s stupidity quotient. While several prominent Republicans were busy arguing that a hundred years of experience with vaccination was irrelevant, Tillis went off on a different anti-public health tangent.

“Speaking at a Bipartisan Policy Center event, Tillis declared our society over-regulated. One example he gave was the requirement that food service workers wash their hands after leaving the bathroom. Defying every principle of good hygiene going back to the Code of Hammurab, Tillis remarked:That gives an entirely new meaning to the phrase “invisible hand.”

TIM HITS THE SPOT (AGAIN)

Tim Worstall (3 February) asks Katrine Marçal what she implies by her question HERE http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/economics/so-who-did-cook-adam-smiths-dinner-then/

“So who did cook Adam Smith’s dinner then?”

Much excitement over in Grauniadland as a new book comes out talking about why that economically rational man so beloved of us neoliberals {NB. but not by me] could not ever be the economically rational woman. Because, you know, women do all that caring and cleaning and stuff for love, not for reasons of calculated rational self-interest:

But a polemical and entertaining new book by a journalist  suggests that Economic Man has another major shortcoming: he’s not, and never could be, a woman.

Hmm. The book’s blurb says:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest When Adam Smith wrote that all our actions stem from self-interest and the world turns because of financial gain he brought to life ‘economic man’. Selfish and cynical, economic man has dominated our thinking ever since and his influence has spread from the market to how we shop, work and date. But every night Adam Smith’s mother served him his dinner, not out of self-interest but out of love. Today, our economics focuses on self-interest and excludes all other motivations. It disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, then that’s because their labour is worth less – how could it be otherwise? Economics has told us a story about how the world works and we have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Now it’s time to change the story. In this courageous look at the mess we’re in, Katrine Marcal tackles the biggest myth of our time and invites us to kick out economic man once and for all.”

Tim challenges to shallowness of the book’s argument:

“The contention is entirely poppycock of course. For we can only make sense of gender roles and how they have changed within that very concept of economic rationality.” The work of Gary Becker explores this world, where the decision to form a family for example, is explained in those rational economic terms. In a world reliant upon human muscle power to feed itself (ie, all of history until the tractor) there was obviously going to be a gender divide in who did what. And as the biologists tell us it really does take two to raise a family (historically one agricultural labourer could produce enough in a year to feed 1.7 to 2.3 people in total). So many other things about men and women only make sense if there is a division of labour (as Smith repeatedly pointed out, this is the basis of wealth creation) and trade in the subsequent produce. “Hunter Gatherer” as a decription of pre-agriculture societies is in itself a gender distinction of roles on the grounds of comparative advantage (which is all about David Ricardo).

Yes, we’ll probably file that under poppycock.

Quite apart from anything else it’s impossible to explain the changes in society in the past century without using that structure of economic rationality. Why have fertility levels fallen so much? Because children now generally survive into adulthood, the name of the game is to have grandchildren, thus one needs fewer children to have them. Why have male happiness rates stayed largely static while female ones have fallen as they gain ever more choice over their lives? Because having more choices means that the opportunity cost of making any single one of them rises. Why have female paid working hours risen? Because automation has meant that the gender division of labour based upon muscle power is no longer useful.”

Comment

I am not clear on what exactly Katrine Marçal is suggesting. Is it that somehow all domestic work should be monitised? How would that work out? Who pays who from what sources of income? 

Is it that theories of rational choice al la Garry Becker should be ditched (to which I would say “hear, hear”)? Is it that there is huge discrimination in work-place pay against women it should abolished (to which I would agree on principle).

Katrine Marçal may like to know that Adam Smith’s household was funded from his academic teaching and publishing incomes and before that fromhis inheritance (including maturing bonds from his father’s role in the passing of the Act of Union with England in 1707), and mainly after he started employment as a lecturer in 1748 (aged 25), his Professorial salaries and his life bond from the Duke of Bucleugh which together more than covered the costs of domestic help for his mother Margaret Douglas Smith, who from middle age was too frail and his aunt who apart from household chores, prepared his dinners. Both of them who lived with him on campus in Glasgow University (1751-64), in Kirkcaldy at his mother’s house (1764-78), and lastly at Smith’s rented home, Panmure House, Edinburgh from 1778 where she died in 1788.  Smith too died there in 1790 and is buried in the Cannongate Kirk grave yard (his mother apparently was buried in her family’s vault in the Kirk yard at Strathendry, Fife).

So who did cook Smith’s dinner? 

It is most likely that he fixed his own breakfast as he was very fond of strawberries in the morning, which Scotland grew in abundance, and he also liked sugar lumps at any time.

Note: the very best biography of Adam Smith is undoubtedly the 1995, first edition of  “The Life of Adam Smith” by Ian S. Ross, second edition, 2010, Oxford University Press. I doubt it will be surpassed by any one else’s biography of Smith for a very long time.

APOLOGIES

I AM VERY BUSY THS WEEK WITH A COUPLE OF WRITING PROJECTS, HENCE A SCARCITY OF LOST LEGACY POSTS, THOUGH I HAVE SEVERAL ON HOLD WHILE I CLEAR A BACKLOG CLOSE TO THEIR DUE DATES.

I HOPE TO RESUME IN A FEW DAYS.

GK

ADAM SMITH AN HIS DOMESTIC ARRANGEMENTS

Tim Worstall (3 February) asks HERE 

“So who did cook Adam Smith’s dinner then?”

"Much excitement over in Grauniadland as a new book comes out talking about why that economically rational man so beloved of us neoliberals could not ever be the economically rational woman. Because, you know, women do all that caring and cleaning and stuff for love, not for reasons of calculated rational self-interest:

But a polemical and entertaining new book by journalist Katrine Marçal suggests that Economic Man has another major shortcoming: he’s not, and never could be, a woman.

Hmm. The book’s blurb says:

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest When Adam Smith wrote that all our actions stem from self-interest and the world turns because of financial gain he brought to life ‘economic man’. Selfish and cynical, economic man has dominated our thinking ever since and his influence has spread from the market to how we shop, work and date. But every night Adam Smith’s mother served him his dinner, not out of self-interest but out of love. Today, our economics focuses on self-interest and excludes all other motivations. It disregards the unpaid work of mothering, caring, cleaning and cooking. It insists that if women are paid less, then that’s because their labour is worth less – how could it be otherwise? Economics has told us a story about how the world works and we have swallowed it, hook, line and sinker. Now it’s time to change the story. In this courageous look at the mess we’re in, Katrine Marcal tackles the biggest myth of our time and invites us to kick out economic man once and for all.”

Tim challenges to shallowness of the book’s argument:

“The contention is entirely poppycock of course. For we can only make sense of gender roles and how they have changed within that very concept of economic rationality.” The work of Gary Becker explores this world, where the decision to form a family for example, is explained in those rational economic terms. In a world reliant upon human muscle power to feed itself (ie, all of history until the tractor) there was obviously going to be a gender divide in who did what. And as the biologists tell us it really does take two to raise a family (historically one agricultural labourer could produce enough in a year to feed 1.7 to 2.3 people in total). So many other things about men and women only make sense if there is a division of labour (as Smith repeatedly pointed out, this is the basis of wealth creation) and trade in the subsequent produce. “Hunter Gatherer” as a decription of pre-agriculture societies is in itself a gender distinction of roles on the grounds of comparative advantage (which is all about David Ricardo).

Yes, we’ll probably file that under poppycock.

Quite apart from anything else it’s impossible to explain the changes in society in the past century without using that structure of economic rationality. Why have fertility levels fallen so much? Because children now generally survive into adulthood, the name of the game is to have grandchildren, thus one needs fewer children to have them. Why have male happiness rates stayed largely static while female ones have fallen as they gain ever more choice over their lives? Because having more choices means that the opportunity cost of making any single one of them rises. Why have female paid working hours risen? Because automation has meant that the gender division of labour based upon muscle power is no longer useful.”

Comment

I agree with Tim. I am not clear on what exactly Katrine Marçal is suggesting. Is it that somehow all domestic work should be monitised? How would that work out? Who pays who from what sources of income? 

Is it that theories of rational choice al la Garry Becker should be ditched (to which I would say “hear, hear”)? Is it that there is huge discrimination in work-place pay against women it should abolished (to which I would agree on principle).

Katrine Marçal may like to know that Adam Smith’s household was funded from his academic teaching and publishing incomes and before that from his small inheritance (including maturing bonds from his father’s role in the passing of the Act of Union with England in 1707), and mainly after he started employment as a lecturer in 1748 (aged 25), his Professorial salaries and his life bond from the Duke of Bucleugh which together more than covered the costs of domestic help for his mother, Margaret Douglas Smith, who from middle age was too frail and his aunt (Jane Douglas) who, apart from household chores, prepared his dinners. Both of them lived with him on campus in Glasgow University (1751-64), in Kirkcaldy at his mother’s house (1764-78), and lastly at Smith’s rented home, Panmure House, Edinburgh from 1778. His mother died in 1784 and his aunt  died in 1788, both at Panmure House.  Smith too died there in 1790 and is buried next door in the Cannongate Kirk grave yard (his mother apparently was buried in her family’s vault in the Kirk yard at Strathendry, Fife).

So who did cook Smith’s dinner? It is most likely that he fixed his own breakfast as he was very fond of strawberries (with sugar) in the morning, which fruit Scotland was famous for. Dinner was supervised by his cousin.