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
>>
>>
>

-- 
Pat Gunning
Professor of Economics
Melbourne, Florida
http://www.nomadpress.com/gunning/welcome.htm