Comments on: Who’s the selfish individualist? http://doctorvee.co.uk/2007/06/26/whos-the-selfish-individualist/ Not a real vee Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:47:48 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Gavin Kennedy, Emeritus Professor, Heriot-Watt University http://doctorvee.co.uk/2007/06/26/whos-the-selfish-individualist/comment-page-1/#comment-102086 Gavin Kennedy, Emeritus Professor, Heriot-Watt University Tue, 26 Jun 2007 20:21:21 +0000 http://doctorvee.co.uk/2007/06/26/whos-the-selfish-individualist/#comment-102086 You are absolutely correct in your interpretation of the selfish charge often made against Adam Smith specifically and the exchange transaction known as ‘bargaining’ (usually complete with the ‘butcher, brewer, and baker, quotation from Wealth Of Nations). Yours is a correct presentation of Adam Smith’s views from Book I, chapter ii of Wealth Of Nations. Would that those epigones who quote this famous, because much quoted, and as often misinterpreted, passage read what they quote a little slower and with more attention. If you can get it right from the start of your studies, why can’t those faculty profs get it right too? Economics will be in safer hands if you are representative of the new students in the ‘next generation’, as ASI calls them, that it ever was with the profs who got it wrong. You are absolutely correct in your interpretation of the selfish charge often made against Adam Smith specifically and the exchange transaction known as ‘bargaining’ (usually complete with the ‘butcher, brewer, and baker, quotation from Wealth Of Nations).

Yours is a correct presentation of Adam Smith’s views from Book I, chapter ii of Wealth Of Nations. Would that those epigones who quote this famous, because much quoted, and as often misinterpreted, passage read what they quote a little slower and with more attention.

If you can get it right from the start of your studies, why can’t those faculty profs get it right too? Economics will be in safer hands if you are representative of the new students in the ‘next generation’, as ASI calls them, that it ever was with the profs who got it wrong.

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