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Speaking of Smith Archives

The Sympathetic Businessman

July 17, 2020




Maugham's story is worth a read for entertainment, but it also highlights an important aspect of commerce: the necessity of sympathy. 

Masks and Mutual Adjustment

July 13, 2020

Adam Smith: Myths and Realities

July 10, 2020

Farming in the time of Coronavirus: Do I CARE Anymore?

July 5, 2020


The taxman shadows the showman, and it is the humble, the middling, the sweating, worrying, mincing business owner and his working clientele that will pay for such comfort. 

Adam Smith and the Costs of the Division of Labor

July 3, 2020


One shouldn’t be satisfied with any discussion of the division of labor that leaves consideration of the costs off the table. 

Why Mandeville Makes Smith Mad

June 29, 2020

A Great and Growing Plague?

June 26, 2020

The Hopeful Vision of Saint Augustine and Adam Smith

June 22, 2020


Here I use Tertullian’s formula to ask a different question, “What has Glasgow to do with Hippo?”

"Saving Adam Smith" Saves My Economics Class

June 19, 2020


Saving Adam Smith hit the bullseye for my most recent search for a book that not only covers a number of my state’s standards, but demystifies the broader understanding of Adam Smith’s economics.

Joseph Banks

June 15, 2020


"...Banks, perhaps instinctively, knew more about economic change than his educational and scientific background let on."

Exploiting the Good Earth

June 8, 2020


The word exploit has now come to be synonymous with theft, which is a pity because it allows so much of what works in the world to be lumped in with what doesn’t.

Adam Smith and Jane Austen

June 5, 2020



The similarities in Smith’s descriptions of moral weakness and Austen’s descriptions of people were undeniable. It was as if I could assign a different character in the book to each of Smith’s passages on moral philosophy.