I do not find much usefulness for Michael's quotes on Smith from his new 
book.  The quotes don't tell us who he believes better qualifies for the 
title, "Founding Father of Modern Economics."  Perhaps, now he can go 
ahead and tell us his nominee with the requisite explanation.

For all I know, David Ricardo might have avoided encouraging Karl Marx 
in the latter's belief in the meaningfulness of his labor theory of 
value had Ricardo not misinterpreted Smith's use of "labor's own value" 
to mean the wage rate.  Eugene Bohm-Bawerk also might not have had his 
considerable difficulties with the classical theory of interest had he 
not misinterpreted "capital" in Smith's statement of interest rate 
determination to mean capital goods.  Austrian economics would have been 
in much better shape today regarding the theory of interest.  Also had 
John Maynard Keynes paid attention to understanding Smith's explanation 
of savings as the source of "capital" borrowed for investment, modern 
macroeconomics might have been in a better shape regarding the theory of 
interest rates, and perhaps be unanimous in appreciating the role of 
savings in promoting economic growth instead of consumer spending.  
There would have been no room for Keynes's meaningless "paradox of 
thrift" proposition since "What is annually saved is as regularly 
consumed as what is annually spent, and nearly in the same time too; but 
it is consumed by a different set of people" (/WN/, 1: 359).

James Ahiakpor

michael perelman wrote:
> 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).
>
>
>
>
>    


-- 
James C.W. Ahiakpor, Ph.D.
Professor&  Chair
Department of Economics
California State University, East Bay
Hayward, CA 94542

(510) 885-3137 Work
(510) 885-4796 Fax (Not Private)