Any who have followed this thread thus far and are interested in whether 
there is a 'feminist critique' of Adam Smith might take a look at Nancy 
Folbre's The Invisible Heart (New York: The New Press, 2001). In my 
opinion this is an important contribution to the debate and deserves to 
be read more widely.

Anthony Waterman


On 04/04/2011 10:35 PM, Pat Gunning wrote:
> Roger, I believe that I have fully considered the implications of 
> using the phrase "founding father." And I would not be surprised to 
> find that others have also.
>
> If the writer of the Wealth of Nations was Eve Smith, she would not 
> have been called a founding father. To be sensitive to the fact of 
> culturally biased language is one thing. To try to change history on 
> the grounds that some historical figure could have been female, or 
> could have been disregarded, is something very different.
>
> A feminist critique of Smith's economics? Is there also a feminist 
> critique of the uncertainty principle or gravity?
>
> Only those who have difficulty defining economics would have this 
> problem, it seems to me.
>
> On 4/4/2011 6:05 PM, Roger Backhouse wrote:
>> What amazes me about this discussion is that there has been no comment
>> on whether it is appropriate to use such gendered language. Am I the
>> only teacher who, when students use the phrase "founding father", asks
>> them to reflect both on whether economics really had a founder and on
>> the implication that such a founder must have been male. If a student
>> proceeded to offer a feminist critique of Smith's economics,
>> presumably such language would be entirely justified, but in my
>> experience that never happens.
>>
>> I realise that for Americans the phrase "founding father" has
>> particular resonance, but I am not convinced that this justifies using
>> it without reflection on its implications.
>>
>> Roger Backhouse
>>
>> On 4 April 2011 02:22, Alexander Guerrero<[log in to unmask]>  
>> wrote:
>>> One the most common mistakes in understanding A Smith’s role as 
>>> “founding
>>> father” of economics is failing to  (read) understand The Theory of 
>>> Moral
>>> Sentiments, before reading The W of N.
>>>
>>> AG
>>>
>>> Economist, PhD.
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> From: Societies for the History of Economics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
>>> Behalf Of luigino bruni
>>> Sent: Sunday, April 03, 2011 2:46 PM
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Re: [SHOE] Adam Smith, the "Founding Father" of Modern 
>>> Economics?
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Smith's idea of invisible hand (mentioned more than once) is 
>>> actually very
>>> central in both his theory of market (wealth of nations) and in his 
>>> theory
>>> of human sentiments and social behaviour: the invisible hand 
>>> mechanism is
>>> one of the most powerful idea in modern social sciences.
>>>
>>>   bye luigino
>>>
>>> 2011/4/1 michael perelman<[log in to unmask]>
>>>
>>> This is from my new book, The Invisible Handcuffs.  I would like to
>>> get some responses from listers.
>>>
>>> Initially, Smith's Wealth of Nations did not make much of an
>>> impression, despite its popularity today. Although his earlier book,
>>> the now less known Theory of Moral Sentiments, was a sensation, his
>>> more famous work seemed as if it had missed its mark. Yet unlike most
>>> ancient writers, whose importance recedes into the distant past,
>>> Smith's influence rapidly grew.
>>>
>>> The book went through five editions, but each of the first two
>>> editions sold only 500 copies    a substantial number, but far from a
>>> roaring success (Waterman 1998b). In Parliament, where the members
>>> frequently quoted important political economists, Charles James Fox
>>> made the first reference to Wealth of Nations on November 11, 1783,
>>> six years after the book first appeared (Rashid 1992, p. 493).  Still
>>> another ten years passed before two of Smith's friends, Alexander
>>> Wedderburn and William Petty's great grandson and former prime
>>> minister, the Marquess of Lansdowne, mentioned the book in the House
>>> of Lords (Rae 1895, p. 291).
>>>
>>> Even in 1789 when Thomas Robert Malthus signed out the 1784 edition of
>>> Wealth of Nations from his college library, he was just the third
>>> person to do so (Waterman 1998a, p. 295). Up to the year 1800, only a
>>> few Cambridge colleges had acquired the book (Waterman 1998b). Emma
>>> Rothschild notes with some irony that when Adam Smith died in 1790,
>>> the influential Annual Register devoted but twelve lines to Smith
>>> compared with sixty five for Major Ray, a deputy quartermaster general
>>> with an interest in barometers. The Scots Magazine gave Smith a scant
>>> nine lines (Rothschild 1992, p. 74).
>>>
>>> Only after the French Revolution of 1789 made British property owners
>>> fearful, did The Wealth of Nations take on an air of importance.
>>> Thereafter, the rich and powerful appreciated Smith's ideological
>>> influence. For example, Francis Horner, editor of the Edinburgh
>>> Review, rejected a request to prepare a set of notes for a new edition
>>> of The Wealth of Nations.  He explained his refusal in a letter to
>>> Thomas Thomson, written on August 15, 1803:
>>>
>>> "I should be reluctant to expose S's errors before his work had
>>> operated its full effect.  We owe much at present to the superstitious
>>> worship of S's name; and we must not impair that feeling, till the
>>> victory is more complete ....  [U]ntil we can give a correct and
>>> precise theory of the origin of wealth, his popular and plausible and
>>> loose hypothesis is as good for the vulgar as any others." [cited in
>>> Horner 1843; 1: 229]
>>>
>>> Thereafter, Smith's influence steadily increased, along with the rise
>>> of Procrustean market ideology. In fact, as one current Smith scholars
>>> observed, "There were more new editions of The Wealth of Nations
>>> published in the 1990s than in the 1890s, and more in the 1890s than
>>> in the 1790s" (Young 2007).
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> -- 
>>> Michael Perelman
>>> Economics Department
>>> California State University
>>> Chico, CA
>>> 95929
>>>
>>> 530 898 5321
>>> fax 530 898 5901
>>> http://michaelperelman.wordpress.com
>>>
>>>
>>
>