Tim Duy on The Pursuit of Wealth
Tim Duy writes “The Pursuit of Wealth” and it is posted on the Economist’s View Blog by Mark Thoma (HERE):
In it he quotes the famous parable of the ‘poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited him with ambition’ (TMS IV.1.8: p 181; 1872 edition, Kessinger Rare Reprints, pp 159-160). This provokes a lively correspondence, some of which appears to take Smith’s parable as a assault on enterprise. In response I posted the following contribution to the discussion:
Tim Duy deserves to be congratulated for drawing wider attention to Adam Smith's writings in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
Some of the above commentators should turn to the chapter Tim quotes from (TMS IV.i.8: p 181). If they do so and turn over the page they will find on page 183 a typical Adam Smith admonition to counter the rather depressing parable of the 'poor man's son', which should answer some commentators who may have missed Smith's main point in the chapter.
He wasn't downgrading the pursuit of wealth (the "annual output of the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of life") at all. He was simply putting the individual motivations that drives such (few) people to get up in the morning. He was putting them in context:
"And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants." (TMS IV.1.10: p 183)
Isolated quotations from Adam Smith often smother his great subtlety of expression by missing his counter-points.
In it he quotes the famous parable of the ‘poor man’s son, whom heaven in its anger has visited him with ambition’ (TMS IV.1.8: p 181; 1872 edition, Kessinger Rare Reprints, pp 159-160). This provokes a lively correspondence, some of which appears to take Smith’s parable as a assault on enterprise. In response I posted the following contribution to the discussion:
Tim Duy deserves to be congratulated for drawing wider attention to Adam Smith's writings in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments".
Some of the above commentators should turn to the chapter Tim quotes from (TMS IV.i.8: p 181). If they do so and turn over the page they will find on page 183 a typical Adam Smith admonition to counter the rather depressing parable of the 'poor man's son', which should answer some commentators who may have missed Smith's main point in the chapter.
He wasn't downgrading the pursuit of wealth (the "annual output of the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of life") at all. He was simply putting the individual motivations that drives such (few) people to get up in the morning. He was putting them in context:
"And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants." (TMS IV.1.10: p 183)
Isolated quotations from Adam Smith often smother his great subtlety of expression by missing his counter-points.
Labels: Ambition, Poor Man's Son
