Posted: Apr 20, 2011 2:26 pm
There was an discussion on Mark Thoma's blog a while back where one of the articles on Smith by an historian had argued that people read Smith's view in the wrong light. It was meant at the time as a descriptive work of what he was seeing around him, not as a prescriptive work for future societies which it is generally viewed as today. IDK if that is correct or not but it was interesting nonetheless.
I haven't read all of Smith's works and very little of Marx. I know one my professors has told me that if you just read the Wealth of Nations you are not getting the whole concept and that he believes one of the bigger mistakes is that so many economic programs require reading the WoN without the Theory of Moral Sentiments which he feels is important to really tie the work together and understand it. I will try and watch the Armatya Sen video and comment on it later. My posting has been rather light lately as I haven't had internet at my house.
I haven't read all of Smith's works and very little of Marx. I know one my professors has told me that if you just read the Wealth of Nations you are not getting the whole concept and that he believes one of the bigger mistakes is that so many economic programs require reading the WoN without the Theory of Moral Sentiments which he feels is important to really tie the work together and understand it. I will try and watch the Armatya Sen video and comment on it later. My posting has been rather light lately as I haven't had internet at my house.