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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:43 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
Why is 'market' not in the index of the Wealth of Nations'? Perhaps because
Smith used the word a lot, but not as a well defined concept which an index
entry might reasonably point to. The word appears frequently in the phrase
'to bring to market', meaning to offer for sale, and in 'market price'. The
division of labour, of course, depends on the extent of the market, and
similarly Smith often wrote about the home market, the foreign market,
distant markets, 'a great and ready market'. He sometimes talks about the
state of the market and about advantageous and confined markets. He did not
have any theoretical concept like (say) a perfectly competitive market, nor
did he use the word to describe a form of organisation (as someone now
might be said to be 'pro-market'). He used the phrase 'free market' once
only (according to my search engine), talking about 'an open and free
market' in wool. An index entry pointing to such inconsequential uses on a
huge number of pages wouldn't be very useful.
Tony Brewer
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