Message from discussion To David Friedman: Antitrust

From: David Friedman <D...@best.com>
Subject: Re: To David Friedman: Antitrust
Date: 1998/05/07
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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"