Economic Thought Before Adam Smith

LARGE PRINT EDITION! More at LargePrintLiberty.com Here is the last masterpiece by Murray N. Rothbard (1926-1995), the result of a lifetime of research and his crowning achievement.This volume is the most extensive treatment from a modern Austrian perspective of the history of economic thought up to Adam Smith and, as such, takes into account the profound influences of religious, social, and political thought upon economics.Murray Rothbard traces economic ideas from ancient sources and shows that laissez-faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the scholastics and early Roman and canon law. The scholastics, he argues, established and developed the subjective utility and scarcity theory of value, as well as the theory that prices, or the value of money, depend on its supply and demand.The Continental, or "pre-Austrian" tradition, was destroyed, rather than developed, by Adam Smith whose strong Calvinist tendencies toward glorifying labor, toil, and thrift is contrasted with emphasis in scholastic economic thought towards labor in the service of consumption.Tracing economic thought from the Greeks to the Scottish enlightenment, this book is notable for its inclusion of all of the important figures in each school of thought with their theories assessed in historical context.

The appearance of the famous (and massive) volumes of Rothbards. History of Economic Thought in a new edition is cause for great celebration. They have been out of print for many years, and were previously only available at a price exceeding $200 for the set. They are at last accessible again, in beautiful hardcover, and at an affordable price. In Economic Thought Before Adam Smith, Murray Rothbard traces economic ideas from ancient sources to show that laissez faire liberalism and economic thought itself began with the scholastic and early Roman, Greek, and canon law. He celebrates Aristotle and Democritus, for example, but loathes Plato and Diogenes. He is kind toward Taoism and Stoicism. He is no fan of Tertullian but very much likes St. Jerome, who defended the merchant class. Now, that takes us only to page 33, just the beginning of a wild ride through the middle ages and renaissance and modern times through 1870. Classical Economics offers new perspectives on both Ricardo and Say and their followers. The author suggests that Ricardianism declined after 1820 and was only revived with the work of John Stuart Mill. The book also resurrects the important Anglo Irish school of thought at Trinity College, Dublin under Archbishop Richard Whatley. Later chapters focus on the roots of Karl Marx and the nature of his doctrines, and laissez faire thought in France including the work of Frederic Bastiat. Also included is a comprehensive treatment of the bullionist versus the anti bullionist and the currency versus banking school controversies in the first half of the nineteenth century, and their influence outside Great Britain. These are indeed the books that Mises himself longed to see "A real history of economic thought," he said in 1955, "would have to point out the development of the doctrines and not merely list every book." When these volumes first appeared, they were celebrated in Barrons and by top scholars around the world. They succeeded in changing the way people think about economic doctrine the beginnings (not Adam Smith, but the Spanish theologians), the dead ends (Marx), the great triumphs (Bastiat, for example), and the truly great minds (Turgot and many others he rescued from near obscurity). Rothbard read deeply in thinkers dating back hundreds and thousands of years, and spotted every promising line of thought & mdash, and every unfortunate one. He knew when an idea would lead to prosperity, and when it would lead to calamity. He could spot a proto Keynesian or proto Marxist idea in the middle ages, just as he could find free market lines of thought in ancient manuscripts. Many scholars believe this was his most important work. The irony is that it is not the work it was supposed to be, and thank goodness. He was asked to do a short overview of the modern era. He ended up writing more than 1,000 pages of original ideas that remade the whole of intellectual history up through the late 19th century. Once Rothbard got into the project, he found that most all historians have made the same error they have believed that the history of thought was a long history of progress. He found that sound ideas ebb and flow in history. So he set out to rescue the great ideas from the past and compare them with the bad ideas of the "new economics." His demolition of Karl Marx is more complete and in depth than any other ever published. His reconstruction of 19th century banking debates has provided enough new ideas for a dozen dissertations, and contemporary real money reform. His surprising evisceration of John Stuart Mill is cause to rethink the whole history of classical liberalism. Most famously, Rothbard demonstrated that Adam Smiths economic theories were, in many ways, a comedown from his predecessors in France and Spain. For example, Smith puzzled over the source of value and finally tagged labor as the source (a mistake Marx built on). But for centuries prior, the earliest economists knew that value came from within the human mind. It was a human estimation, not an objective construct. Rothbard was a pioneer in incorporating the sociology of religion into the history of economic ideas. He saw that the advent of Christianity had a huge impact on the theory of the state. He observed the rise of absolutism and theory of nationalism that came with the reformation. He traced the changes in the Western view toward lending and interest payments over the course of a thousand years. The number of insights in these volumes are countless. Every page, every paragraph, bursts with intellectual energy and the authors fiery passion to tell the reader the remarkable story of economics. Many reviewers have remarked that Rothbards accomplishment seems super human. He seems to have read everything. His originality is overwhelming. His passion for liberty and integrity in science is evident. His disdain toward those who sell out to the state is manifest as well. Rothbard worked on these volumes in the ten years before his death. He also gave a series of lectures on his ongoing research. As a result, we all had very high expectations. But nothing could have prepared us for what eventually appeared. This set is a monument to Rothbards genius, a resource that will be valuable to intellectuals for generations, and a great read too.

Featuring original contributions from some of the leading contemporary figures in the history of economic thought, this book offers new perspectives on key topics, from Smith's Wealth of Nations to the Jevonian Revolution. Drawing inspiration from the life and work of R.D.C. Black, formerly Professor of Economics at Queen's University Belfast, this book will be of essential interest to any serious scholar of economic thought.

Adam Smiths original, path breaking work on decision making, uncertainty and public policies to minimize the impact of uncertainty in the economy has been overlooked for well over two hundred years. One need only peruse the badly analyzed work of Smith in this area as presented by Henry D MacLeod in his The Elements of Political Economy on pp.212-220 or Henry Sidgwicks The Principles of Political Economy on pp.359-361, as well as the misevaluations of Smiths contributions made by Jacob Viner in 1927, Joseph Schumpeter in 1954, Murray Rothbard in 1995, or Salim Rashid in 1998 to realize that Smiths important contributions were never recognized. The claim that Smith made no original contributions to economic theory or economics is simply false.

The conventional received opinion of Adam Smith as an isolated figure, the founder of ‘modern’ economics, is thoroughly mistaken and misleading. This is the central premise of this book, first published in 1988, in which the author argues that by placing Smith’s work in its historical context, we discover profound continuities between Smith’s work and that of his predecessors, and his contemporaries. The effect is to re-orientate our perception of Smith and his achievement. No longer the single-handed champion of free markets and competition whose work revolutionised and completely redirected economics. He appears instead as a brilliant contributor to a deep-rooted contemporary debate, someone who can be placed in a line of thinkers that stretches between Machiavelli and Kant.