It may be relevant to note the widely quoted statement of the first 
Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, George Pryme, in his 
'Introductory Lecture' (1823):

'Little more than half a century has passed since Political Economy has 
attained any degree of security, or has even assumed a distinct shape 
and existence. Some parts of Political knowledge have indeed occupied 
the attention of mankind from the earliest periods . . . But Political 
Economy, as a distinct science, has been till lately unattempted. . .

It is but 200 years since Bacon taught that method of reasoning and 
philosophy to which must be attributed all subsequent advances of 
science. . . it is but century since we learned from Newton anything 
certain about the laws of the universe; or from Locke about the origin 
of our ideas; . . . much less since Linnaeus arranged and unfolded the 
History of Organic Nature; that in Chemistry all was darkness and error 
till the present age; need we wonder that Political Economy made no 
earlier advances to perfection? Its place was naturally posterior to 
considerable progress. . . of natural opulence. . . Bills of Exchange, 
and Paper Money, chartered companies with exclusive privilege of trade, 
the Funding system, the extensive use of machinery in diminishing manual 
labour, are of recent origin. It could scarcely have arisen till the 
invention of printing, the discovery of the Western Hemisphere. . . (etc.)

In 1776, Adam Smith presented to the public his 'Inquiry into the Nature 
and Cause of the Wealth of Nations', a work so profound, so original, 
and for the most part so incontrovertible, that Political Economy may be 
said before that time to have had no existence. Former writers had, as 
it were, stumbled upon some of its true principles. He was the first who 
shewed that they were true. . .'

Anthony Waterman







On 9/9/2011 11:48 AM, gavin wrote:
> Crediting Adam Smith as the "Founding Father of Modern Economics" is unhelpful though now ubiquitous.  It started with J. B. Say and has had a long gestation period.
>
> In the 1930s, Oscar Lange (1937-, 38; and 1945), argued that socialist planning was superior to capitalist markets because socialist planners would do better in their planned interventions than Smith’s unreliable and uncontrolled invisible hand.
>
> Paul Samuelson, argued the now ubiquitous view, that Adam Smith’s invisible hand meant markets were superior, though he got Smith’s words wrong in popularizing the myth that the IH meant markets enabled ‘selfish’ people to act unintentionally for the public good (Economic, 1948, p 36).  This justified Smith as the ‘father of economics’ in contrast to Soviet planning.
>
> At the UK HET annual conference this week (Balliol, Oxford) Professor Arild Saether, presented a detailed paper, “Pufendorf – Hutcheson’s and Smith’s Most Important Source?”, with clear details of Pufendorf’s (1632-1704) priority in many key economic concepts in his widely read and used books in many European languages, including English (Smith read Latin too) in European Universities, including Glasgow in Scotland.
> Details link Hutcheson’s (Smith’s tutor) and Smith’s ideas to Pufendorf’s prior publications, showing that:
>
> ‘if  Adam Smith, as Jean Baptiste Say claimed, can be called the father of political economy, Samuel Pufendorf deserves to be remembered as the grandfather’.
>
> I believe that there is a case to be answered here, let alone whether to continue the usefulness and correctness of the popular claims about our discipline’s parentage.   We might also wish to re-look at other myths, their origins and purpose.
>
> I am sure that Arild Saether would send his paper on request to: [log in to unmask]
>
>