Course Description
Course: Classic Texts in Political Economy
Code: PEC461
Semester: B
Instructors: N. Theocharakis
Course Description
The goal of the course is to familiarize students with the seminal text So political economy and teach the meconomic theory through the classics. We will select for analysis one of the following texts:
- Adam Smith, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776)
- David Ricardo, On the Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817)
- Karl Marx, Das Kapital, Volume 1, (1867)
- John Maynard Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money (1936).
This semester we will explore Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. We will provide biographical data on the Scottish philosopher and place him and his work in the context of (a) the Scottish Enlightenment and moral-sense
philosophy, (b) his economic environment (beginnings of the industrial revolution) and (c) the history of economic thought, in particular in relation to mercantilism, physiocracy and natural law philosophy. Before reading the Wealth of Nations we will explore Smith's thought as it appears in his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and Lectures on Jurisprudence. We will then discuss the history of writing and publishing the Wealth of Nations as well its translation into various languages and its reception in other countries.
Once we have created the preconditions for a scientific approach to the text we will read major excerpts from it. The English text to be used is that of the critical Glasgow edition of 1976. The first lectures will
cover Smith's analysis of the division of labour and his theory of value. The latter will be analyzed in relation to its predecessors and its subsequent development by Ricardo and Marx. The analysis of Book IV will
lead us to Smith's critique of mercantilism and physiocracy and to a discussion of the celebrated passage of the invisible hand. Smith's theory of public finance will be analyzed in our reading of Book V.
After each reading we will discuss alternative interpretations of Smith. Special attention will be given to (a) Das Adam Smith Problem, i.e., the potential contradiction between the philosopher's two books, (b) Smith's theory of value and (c) the invisible hand.
The course is examined by an essay. The original texts and secondary literature are supplied in the e-class. Pre-requisites for the course are History of Economic Thought [ECO313], Introduction to Political Economy
[PEC101] and Introduction to Economic History [HIS101]
Bibliography
Fitzgibbons, Athol (1995). Adam Smith's System of Liberty, Wealth, and Virtue: The Moral and Political Foundations of the Wealth of Nations, Oxford: Clarendon Press
Ingrao, Bruna and Israel, Giorgio (1990). The Invisible Hand: Economic Equilibrium in the History of Science, Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
Montes, Leonidas (2004).Adam Smith in Context: A Critical Reassessment of
Some Central Components of His Thought, London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Oncken, August (1897). "The Consistency of Adam Smith", Economic Journal, 7 (3): 443-450.
Raphael, D. D. (1985). Adam Smith, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ross, Ian Simpson (2003). The Life of Adam Smith, Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Rothschild, Emma (2001). Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet, and the Enlightenment, Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press.
Smith, Adam (1976). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Adam (1976). The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by D. D. Raphael and A. L. Macfie, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Smith, Adam (1978). Lectures on Jurisprudence, edited by R. L. Meek, D. D. Raphael and P. G. Stein, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Tribe, Keith (2008). "'Das Adam Smith Problem' and the origins of modern Smith scholarship", History of European Ideas, 34 (4): 514-525.
Theocarakis, Nicholas J. (2013), "The Reception of Adam Smith in Greece: a Most Peculiar Metakenosis", Adam Smith Review, Volume 7.
Viner, Jacob (1927). "Adam Smith and laissez-faire", Journal of Political Economy, 35 (2): 198-232.
More material is provided in the bibliography for specific essay topics in e-class