The soul of modern economic man
Subtitle: ideas of self-interest : Thomas Hobbes to Adam Smith
By: Milton L. Myers.
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 1983
Place of publication: Chicago; London
Language: eng
Number of pages: 148
Subjects: Rational expectations (Economic theory); Economics -- Philosophy.
Description: Adam Smith's classic, The Wealth of Nations, is generally regarded as the source of modern economics, the first statement of the principles of laissez-faire and free market economics. In his own time, however, Smith was not the "first economist" but rather the end of a long line of moral philosophers. He offered an economic solution to a moral question: can individual self-interest be a constructive force for the collective welfare? In The Soul of Modern Economic Man, Milton L. Myers offers the first detailed account of the debate over the legitimacy of self-interest that had raged among the English literati from the time of Hobbes. His account will interest students of political and social philosophy as well as historians of economics.^

^^The Wealth of Nations was the most influential and decisive reply to Hobbes's scathing indictment of self-interest in Leviathan, but Myers contends that the doctrine of free markets could not have been seriously considered if earlier writers had not lessened the social and religious stigma attached to self-interest. Country clergymen, poets, university dons, bishops, and politicians--all are represented here, arguing the social value of self-interest in fascinating diversity. Some writers were moved by the influence of Newton to propose that, just as gravity controls the celestial bodies in the heavens, self-interest constructively organizes the movement of human bodies in society. Others favored a psychological approach, proposing that self-interest is only one of man's inherent drives and is controlled by a natural balance of motives. A third group contended that self-interest brings about a natural division of labor and results in higher collective productivity.^

Smith continued the trend toward a more empirical treatment of self-interest and succeeded brilliantly in translating the terms of the old argument into economic principles. Myers's study of Adam Smith's philosophical antecedents provides a new, fuller understanding of the origins of classical economics and allows a more complex and informed view of Smith's motivation in writing The Wealth of Nations.
Notes: Includes index.