Adam Smith Lives!

Economists as leaders -- session at International Leadership Association in Prague

We often think of leaders in the political dimension.  Sometimes we think about leaders in the space of ideas.  Too rarely we appreciate that economists have been leaders in both dimensions.  This session considers 4 such episodes: 

1) resistance to Hitler in WWII.  "One brave student" helped Walter Eucken survive the concentration camps.  This paper explores his leadership role in the creation of the post war German economic order which has turned sixty this year.  Author: Ekkehard Kohler (Walter Eucken Institute).

2) Chile and Pinochet.  This paper introduces the relationship between economist and society as a species of the Socratic problem.  It looks at the teachers' reputation and standing while focusing on the role of Chicago economists as advisors to General Pinochet. Author:  Eric Schliesser (Leiden)

3) Hayek and the founding of the Mont Pelerin Society.  Before the MPS is established, social Darwinists who favoured eugenics had great influence in the American individualist movement; afterwards they have little.  We argue that this is largely due to Hayek's leadership. Authors: David M. Levy (GMU) and Sandra J. Peart (Jepson School of Leadership Studies)

4) Czechoslovaia after the fall of Communism.  This paper investigates how economic experts shaped economic, political and social outcomes in Czechoslovakia.  Authors: Dalibor Rohak (Oxford), Pavol Hardos (Central European University).

CFP -- Storep

I would add to this CFP that I attended STOREP 2 years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it.  Gave a talk on Hayek on J. S. Mill entitled "Did Mill Ruin Classical Liberalism?". 

____

The 7th Annual Conference of the Italian Association for the History of Political Economy (STOREP) will be hosted by the Department of Sociology and Social Research and the Department of Economics of the University of Trento from May 30th to June 1st 2010. The special theme of the conference is: The shifting boundaries between public and private in economics. As with past STOREP conferences, proposals of sessions or submissions of papers concerning any other aspect of the history of economic thought are also welcome. Paper abstracts of no more than 200 words or a brief ( 400 words) description of theme, motivation, authors and paper titles for a session should be submitted to: [email protected]. The deadline for submissions is January 31st, 2010. The Scientific Committee will send notice of acceptance or rejection within February 20th, 2010. Completed papers will be due by May 10th, 2010. Call for paper and further information are available at http://events.unitn.it/en/storep2010

Self interest, altruism and morality -- Undergraduate Ethics Symposium

The Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics at DePauw University is sponsoring an Undergraduate Ethics Symposium April 8-10, 2010.  This conference is shaped around a series of workshops in which students present to one another their best work on a subject of ethical concern.  I write to invite you to encourage your faculty to bring this event to the attention of their students.  A Call for Essays and Creative Writing Projects is attached, and a tentative schedule for the symposium, which will be frequently updated, is available on our website: http://prindleinstitute.depauw.edu/programs/ethics_symposium.asp. Let me say at the outset that we hope to receive thoughtful and insightful essays and creative writing works which explore, analyze and examine ethical issues in a variety of ways.  While writings on all areas of ethical concern are welcome, we encourage submissions focusing on Self-Interest, Altruism and Morality:  Evolutionary, Religious and Philosophical Perspectives.

The students whose works are accepted for the symposium will benefit from the critiques and comments of their peers in the seminar, and also from the visiting scholar or creative writer who will direct the workshop.  Our goal is that each student who participates in the Symposium will have a polished piece of writing which s/he can then submit in a portfolio, a graduate school application, or a job application.

This is an honors symposium, and those students whose works are received by the February 1 deadline and accepted for inclusion in the conference program by panels of DePauw faculty members will have all of their expenses paid for the conference.  DePauw will cover travel expenses (up to $400), lodging and food for each conference participant.  The group will be relatively small; we hope to have 20-30 students from a variety of colleges and universities.  The seminars in which the works will be discussed will consist of seven to ten students each.

We would greatly appreciate your posting the attached Call for Essays and Creative Writing Projects, sharing this information with interested colleagues and, especially, encouraging students at your university to submit their work to us at the Ethics Institute.

Sincerely,

Martha Rainbolt

Coordinator, Janet Prindle Institute for Ethics

 

 

visiting scholar position

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies is accepting applications for the position of the Zuzana Simoniova Visiting Scholar in Leadership and Ethics for 2010-11. This program, made possible by a generous gift from the Ukrop family, is designed to give visiting scholars the opportunity to develop courses, to design programs, or to conduct research. Visiting scholars may be new Ph.D.s or experienced scholars who hold a Ph. D. in an academic area related to the study of leadership and ethics.  Scholars from newly formed democracies are encouraged to apply.  Applicants should explain in a cover letter how their research, teaching and future plans relate to the scholarship that they would pursue as a visitor at Jepson.

The Visiting Scholar will be in residence at the University of Richmond in order to pursue his or her own advanced research related to leadership and ethics.  Successful applicants will receive a research stipend. Candidates should apply at https://www.urjobs.org/.

The Jepson School of Leadership Studies is accepting applications for the position of the Zuzana Simoniova Visiting Scholar in Leadership and Ethics for 2010-11. This program, made possible by a generous gift from the Ukrop family, is designed to give visiting scholars the opportunity to develop courses, to design programs, or to conduct research. Visiting scholars may be new Ph.D.s or experienced scholars who hold a Ph. D. in an academic area related to the study of leadership and ethics.  Scholars from newly formed democracies are encouraged to apply.  Applicants should explain in a cover letter how their research, teaching and future plans relate to the scholarship that they would pursue as a visitor at Jepson.

The Visiting Scholar will be in residence at the University of Richmond in order to pursue his or her own advanced research related to leadership and ethics.  Successful applicants will receive a research stipend. Candidates should apply at https://www.urjobs.org/.

Call for papers -- Adam Smith Review on the future of capitalism

 

Is there a future for the robust sort of capitalism favoured by Adam Smith or have we reached a limit to Anglo-American capitalism as the engine of human betterment?  Over the last few decades scholars from many points of view have found the basis for a uniquely defensible position in Smith's work.  It is therefore appropriate that the Adam Smith Review proposes a symposium devoted to the theme: "Is Anglo-American capitalism passing away?"  We are particularly interested in contributions that view current economic events through a lens informed by Smith's teaching on institutions, money and economic growth.  Please send proposals and suggestions for contributions to Sandra J. Peart, Dean, Jepson School of Leadership Studies ([email protected]) by October 15, 2009; full papers to be submitted for refereeing by January 15, 2010.


The Adam Smith Review  http://www.adamsmithreview.org/  is a refereed scholarly review published by Routledge and sponsored by the International Adam Smith Society.  http://www.adamsmithsociety.net/  In recent years the ASR has taken its place at the center of Smith scholarship in the world, with an international editorial board comprised of the most eminent scholars thinking and writing about Adam Smith.  The ASR provides a unique forum for vigorous debate and the highest standards of scholarship on all aspects of Smith's work, his place in history, and the significance of his thought for the modern world.  It aims to facilitate discussion among scholars working from different disciplinary and theoretical perspectives -- a resource for Smith scholarship in the widest sense.  

 

impartiality

For Smith, impartiality is the means by which we come to know and do what's right. Since we all wish to be praiseworthy, we'll at least try for impartiality and so come to do what deserves praise. Here's a key passage on this

The man who is conscious to himself that he has exactly observed those measures of conduct which experience informs him are generally agreeable, reflects with satisfaction on the propriety of his own behaviour. When he views it in the light in which the impartial spectator would view it, he thoroughly enters into all the motives which influenced it. He looks back upon every part of it with pleasure and approbation, and though mankind should never be acquainted with what he has done, he regards himself, not so much according to the light in which they actually regard him, as according to that in which they would regard him if they were better informed. He anticipates the applause and admiration which in this case would be bestowed upon him, and he applauds and admires himself by sympathy with sentiments, which do not indeed actually take place, but which the ignorance of the public alone hinders from taking place, which he knows are the natural and ordinary effects of such conduct, which his imagination strongly connects with it, and which he has acquired a habit of conceiving as something that naturally and in propriety ought to follow from it.

How does it go wrong?  Suppose we come to believe we are exceptional especially in our moral judgment.  We see ourselves as somehow superior to the rest, deserving of praise for that reason; the impartial spectator no longer summarizes what's "generally agreeable"; we make exceptions; we break rules and norms that we, mistakenly, believe are made for the rest but not for us.  Smith's impartial spectator requires that we see ourselves as no more -- or less -- than the rest of humanity.

Smith on the origin of ambition

Reading for my class today, TMS part 1. 

The chapter on ambition begins with the lovely passage:

It is because mankind are disposed to sympathize with more entirely with our joy than with our sorrow, that we make parade of our riches, and conceal our poverty.  Nothing is so mortifying as to be obliged to expose our distress to the view of the public, and to feel, that though our situation is open to the eyes of all mankind, no mortal conceives for us the half of what we suffer.  Nay, it is chiefly from this regard to the sentiments of mankind, that we pursue riches and avoid poverty.  For to what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world?  what is the end of of avarice and ambition, of the pursuit of wealth, of power, and preheminence?  Is it to supply the necessities of nature?  The wages of the meanest labourer can supply them. ... To be observed, to be attended to, to be taken notice of with sympathy, complacency, and approbation, are all the advantages which we can propose to derive from it.  It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us.  But vanity is always founded upon the belief of our being the object of attention and approbation.

One wonders if these sentiments have been eroded over time?  It seems -- but I'm not entirely sure -- that whatever mortification and suffering Smith describes has been mitigated over time as has their motivational force.  If so, the question is why would the judgment of the impartial spectator have changed over time?

contest announcement (from SDAE -- Steve Horwitz)

The 2009 FEE Prizes in Austrian Economics

The Society for the Development of Austrian
Economics is pleased to announce that nominations
are now open for the 2009 Foundation for Economic
Education Prizes for the best book and the best
article recently published in Austrian economics.
The following conditions apply:

1. Authors nominated must be members in good
standing with the SDAE (check the Society's
website at
<http://it.stlawu.edu/sdae/>http://it.stlawu.edu/sdae/
for information on how to join).

2. The books and articles nominated must have
been published between January 1, 2007 and August 31, 2009.

3. Nominated articles should be emailed as an
attachment or its URL sent to Christopher Coyne –
<mailto:[email protected].>[email protected].

4. Nominations for the book prize should include
the title and all other relevant information
(publisher, date of publication, ISBN #) and be
sent to the above email address. Those nominating
books need not send copies.  Edited volumes and
short monographs are not eligible for the award.

5. All nominations must be received no later than October 19, 2009.

6. Self-nominations will not be accepted.

Each prize comes with a cash award of $500 thanks
to the generous support of the Foundation for
Economic Education. Winners will be announced at
the annual banquet of the SDAE, this year in San
Antonio, TX in conjunction with the Southern
Economic Association meetings from November 21 – 23, 2009.

Questions may be directed to Chris Coyne or by replying back to me.

Steve Horwitz
SDAE Secretary

back again -- determined to continue (!) and thinking about transparency

On my on again off again issue -- I plead the increased expectations related to being a dean of a School!  I do intend to return to this blog site systematically again.  I'm teaching Competition, Cooperation and Choice this semester and we're reading Smith (Adam - TMS and WoN) and Smith (Vernon) plus a few people in between.  So far it's really good fun in large measure because students from the Jepson School (LST) and the Robins School (Ecn) are so good.

David Levy and I are working on the role of experts and expertise in social science.  We're much concerned of late -- in the light of the financial meltdown and various successful ponzi schemes -- with the ethical foundation of transparency.  In our view, transparency is part and parcel with fair play.  The basic idea is that transparency rules out unfair information advantages, i.e., secrecy.  So, no one has an information advantage over anyone else. Lack of fairness comes into play when someone thinks there is no informational advantage but there really is one.  This disconnect between belief and reality opens up the possibility of exploitation.

So why post this here?  Our conceptualization harks back to Adam Smith.  It's also got a very Knightian feel, with the emphasis on fair play.

How might it work?  If something is common knowledge then it is transparent.  It is common knowledge that the formula for Coke is a trade secret so the way we’re using the word, the fact of the secret is then transparent.  What violates transparency?  The false belief that something is not a secret. If people believed Coke's formula were known to all, that would violate transparency; if people believe that the methods and conditions for testing a drug were known to all when they were not widely known -- this would violate transparency.  Since people trust drugs on the advice of experts, the fact of transparency is really important. This is especially important in the light of the sort of middling experts we have as a result of the division of labour.  Some folks do the research on a drug.  Results are published in a journal.  A physician prescribes it.  A consumer takes it.  Do we have transparency -- as we've described it -- all along the way? 

HOPE conference announcement

The annual /History of Political Economy/ Conference -- this year on the topic "Robert Solow and the Development of Growth Economics" -- will be held 25-27 April 2008 at Duke University.  Further information, including the tentative program, can be found on the Duke History of Economy Group website (http://econ.duke.edu/HOPE), following the links to HOPE Conferences and then to the 2008 conference or, directly, to the HOPE 2008 website
http://econ.duke.edu/HOPE/HOPEconference2008OpenAccess/HOPE2008master.htm

Mauro Boianovsky <[email protected]>
Kevin Hoover <[email protected]>
    Organizers