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reply to Professor Moss 
 
i think there has been a misunderstanding. Professor Moss elaborates on 
the role of unintended consequences in Smith. I agree with every word. 
He then slaps me on the wrist for not giving citations (I have, in 
earlier posts, but I try not to burden colleagues with excessively long 
posts - see my paper on Hume in the European Journal of HET 1997 and my 
forthcoming paper on Hume and Smith in the Scotish Journal for more 
citations - I will mail the forthcoming file to anyone interested) and 
invites me to reply, as if he were challenging what I have said. But 
his line is surely the one I have been arguing - unintended 
consequences matter in fact, and Smith said so. 
 
The problem may be with a paragraph in which I admitted that conscious 
policy had a role. This was a concession on my part, against the main 
line of my argument, to placate others who have played down unintended 
consequences. But surely we have to admit that governments or rulers of 
states did sometimes adopt policies, designed for example to attract 
profitable entrepot trade, which were clearly intended to enlarge the 
market sector. My point was that these were themselves derivative from 
the example of already successful trading states, that is, that the 
unintended consequences story comes first in explaining the rise of the 
market. I didn't intend to attribute this concession to Smith or Hume, 
though I was perhaps unclear about that. 
 
We are on the same side. 
 
Tony 
---------------------- 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
University of Bristol, Department of Economics 
8 Woodland Road, Bristol BS8 1TN, England 
Phone (+44/0)117 928 8428 
Fax (+44/0)117 928 8577 
 
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