Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society

by Jerry Z. Muller

Overview

Counter to the popular impression that Adam Smith was a champion of selfishness and greed, Jerry Muller shows that the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations maintained that markets served to promote the well-being of the populace and that government must intervene to counteract the negative effects of the pursuit of self-interest. Smith's analysis went beyond economics to embrace a larger "civilizing project" designed to create a more decent society.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780691001616
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	07/23/1995
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	263
Sales rank:	718,690
Product dimensions:	7.75(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Jerry Z. Muller is Associate Professor of History at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. He is the author of The Other God That Failed: Hans Freyer and the Deradicalization of German Conservatism (Princeton).

Table of Contents

Introduction: Back to Adam? 1

Pt. I Adam Smith in His Time

1 Cosmopolitan Provincial: Smith's Life and Social Milieu 15

2 Gentlemen, Consumers, and the Fiscal-Military State 28

3 Self-Love and Self-Command: The Intellectual Origins of Smith's Civilizing Project 39

Pt. II Designing the Decent Society

4 The Market: From Self-Love to Universal Opulence 63

5 The Legislator and the Merchant 77

6 Social Science as the Anticipation of the Unanticipated 84

7 Commercial Humanism: Smith's Civilizing Project 93

8 "The Impartial Spectator" 100

9 The Historical and Institutional Foundations of Commercial Society 113

10 The Moral Balance Sheet of Commercial Society 131

11 The Visible Hand of the State 140

12 Applied Policy Analysis: Smith's Sociology of Religion 154

13 "A Small Party": Moral and Political Leadership in Commercial Society 164

Pt. III From Smith's Time to Ours

14 Critics, Friendly and Unfriendly 177

15 Some Unanticipated Consequences of Smith's Rhetoric 185

16 The Timeless and the Timely 194

Notes 206

Guide to Further Reading 240

Acknowledgments 262

Index 265

What People are Saying About This

Robert Heilbroner

Jerry Muller has written an extraordinarily good book on the most quoted and least read of the worldly philosophers.
— Robert Heilbroner, Author of "The Worldly Philosophers"

Michael Novak

A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to 'pass over' into the horizon of his subject in order to see the world as the subject sees it; and a sympathy such as to gain a feel for the world of the subject. . . . Like Adam Smith, his subject, intellectual historian Jerry Muller exemplifies these traits to an exceptional degree.
— Michael Novak, "First Things"

From the Publisher

"Jerry Muller has written an extraordinarily good book on the most quoted and least read of the worldly philosophers."—Robert Heilbroner, Author of The Worldly Philosophers

"A good work of intellectual history should exemplify two qualities above all: an imagination that allows the author to 'pass over' into the horizon of his subject in order to see the world as the subject sees it; and a sympathy such as to gain a feel for the world of the subject. . . . Like Adam Smith, his subject, intellectual historian Jerry Muller exemplifies these traits to an exceptional degree."—Michael Novak, First Things

Editorial Reviews

"A profoundly erudite and timely study."—-John Gray, National Review

"Muller's great accomplishment in this book is to present a clear, thoughtful, and engaging overview of Adam Smith's thought. He reveals Smith to be a wide-ranging and innovative thinker who formulated a comprehensive social science."—-Peter McNamara, The Review of Politics

From the Publisher

Muller's great accomplishment in this book is to present a clear, thoughtful, and engaging overview of Adam Smith's thought. He reveals Smith to be a wide-ranging and innovative thinker who formulated a comprehensive social science.

The Review of Politics - Peter McNamara

A profoundly erudite and timely study.

National Review - John Gray

Muller's great accomplishment in this book is to present a clear, thoughtful, and engaging overview of Adam Smith's thought. He reveals Smith to be a wide-ranging and innovative thinker who formulated a comprehensive social science.
— Peter McNamara

The Review of Politics

A profoundly erudite and timely study.
— John Gray

National Review