When Smith is referred to as the 'founding father' of economics, what does it mean? I ask that seriously, because you do not need Foucault to recognize that there might be ideological purposes behind labelling him as the 'founding father'. For instance, you might wish to be pushing some of his theoretical-ideological goals, like economic growth or like the desirability of resolving conflict in an economic marketplace rather than a political arena. And what do you do with those (central to Smith?) elements of his thought (like the distinction between productive and unproductive labor, or the role of the state in adult education) that are not part of the contemporary economics that he purportedly 'founded'. (As a current political example of my latter point: the Tea Party fellow travellers in the US recently engaged in reading the US Constitution in the House of Representatives to start the session, but they omitted all the parts -- agreed to by the 'founding fathers' and unarguable [I would have thought] part of the founding fathers' constitution -- that referred to slavery.) Peter G Stillman -- Peter G. Stillman Department of Political Science Vassar College (#463) 124 Raymond Avenue Poughkeepsie, NY 12604-0463 [log in to unmask] office: 845-437-5581 FAX: 845-437-7599 http://faculty.vassar.edu/stillman/