To David Friedman: Antitrust
David Friedman <d...@best.com>
In article <199805070727.AAA26...@cybere.creative.net>, "Vincent Cook"
<Use-Author-Address-Header@[127.1]> wrote:
>What Smith really did was import a few French theories (but
>unfortunately not some of the more advanced conceptions of value)
>into the Scottish context, and thus introduce the English-speaking
>world to some laissez-faire ideas in a watered-down form. Of
>particular importance was Smith's advocacy of free trade in
>international commerce, which has become a sort of holy grail of
>British political economy (even in its more collectivist variants)
>ever since.
>However, unlike some of the French,
>Smith's pro-capitalist stands
>were not integrated in a coherent fashion to offer a rigorous
>defense of laissez-faire,
You are arguing that Turgot's physiocratic theory was "integrated in a
coherent fashion?"
Putting aside the question of influences, what do you find in Cantillon or
Turgot that is correct, and that Smith got wrong?
>so he wound up advocating a long list of
>interventionist measures instead - specifically banking regulation,
>a government monopoly of money,
What government monopoly of money? Smith supported the Scottish system of
private banks issuing their own currency. Do you mean his support for a
government monopoly over small notes?
> public works, a government postal
>monopoly,
Where does Smith say that the post should be a monopoly? Indeed, where
does he discuss a post office in our (rather than the 18th century) sense
of the term?
>agricultural export restrictions,
Where does he support agricultural export restrictions?
>mandates for certain
>aspects of real estate (fire walls, mortgage registration), and
>prohibition of wages-in-kind.
Actually, Smith favored a slightly higher tax on wages in kind--a mistake,
but not the mistake you attribute to him, unless you are thinking of a
passage I don't know.
>Smith also was in favor of many kinds
>of taxes.
And Turgot and Cantillon (and Menger and ...) were in favor of having no
taxes? News to me.
>Most economists today are still largely unaware of the ideas of the
>early Austrians and of the pre-Smithian body of economic theory. The
>Smith-as-founder myth became entrenched because the post-Revolution
>French economists, starting with J.B. Say, found it politically
>expedient to distance themselves from their 18th Century predecessors
>(who were pro-royalist reformers, with Turgot even being Minister of
>Finance briefly) and portray themselves as Smithians instead.
Or, alternatively, because they found Smith (and Ricardo) to have a more
nearly correct and consistent theory.
--
David Friedman
D
...@Best.com
http://www.best.com/~ddfr/ "No man is secure in his life, liberty or property
while the legislature is in session"
