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From Paul Sagar's bio (the author of this article): "i am lecturer in political theory in the department of political economy, king’s college london i complet
by phaemon 9y ago
From Paul Sagar's bio (the author of this article):
"i am lecturer in political theory in the department of political economy, king’s college london
i completed my doctorate at the university of cambridge (2014), after receiving an ma in intellectual history and the history of political thought from the university of london (2010), and a ba in politics, philosophy, and economics from the university of oxford (2008). from 2014-17 i was junior research fellow at king’s college, cambridge.
my doctoral thesis centred upon the political thought of david hume in the context of british debates over the nature of human sociability and moral psychology. i extended this research in my recently completed book, the opinion of mankind: sociability and the state from hobbes to smith, published with princeton university press. alongside my work in the history of political thought i also research contemporary political theory. i am in the early stages of researching a second monograph, which will explore adam smith’s political thought as grounded in his views of history and commercial society."
(the original is in all caps, hence the lack of capitalisation)
From you:
"Nothing in the article is really wrong"
Well, thanks for that. I'm going to take a wild guess that the author knows a hell of a lot more about Adam Smith than you do, even if you have been "interested in these for many years".
And I think that applies doubly to the other critics above.
- 0xCMP 9y agoHey, this is a discussion forum, so can we please not appeal to authority here just to say (in so many words) "I don't care what your opinion on this linked article is because he's an expert and you're not." What's the point of discussion if you simply say "Oh, but they know more so just shut up"?
- mikojan 9y agoThere's nothing wrong with an appeal to authority in response to an appeal to authority.
- ionised 9y agoWhy not? How does a logical fallacy become okay if it is in response to the same logical fallacy?
- rosser 9y agoAppeals to authority aren't necessarily fallacious, if the authority being cited is actually an authority.
- benbreen 9y agoThanks for pointing this out. I appreciate the sentiment behind critiquing a blind reliance on authority but lately online I've seen a lot of knee jerk rejections of any authority which I find counter-productive at best. Surely we can agree that our presence on an online discussion forum doesn't obviate the fact that some people who have spent years professionally researching a topic are likely to have a stronger claim to knowing about it than those who haven't.
- nickik 9y agoEverybody has a bias, his interpretation where it goes away from his words does so too. His own opinions color his view of Smith, as does mine. My point was that his text was not wrong, but it played to people who interpret it in certain ways. A naive reading of his article would lead one to conclude that Treacher and Stalin were the same in the eyes of Smith. I was just point out that just because they are the same in this one aspect of his thought, it is still a very large and important difference in the content. There is no question if Smith would prefer a more market oriented framework with stronger individual liberty then we have now. I mean the state spends around ~50% of GDP in the developed world and has major regulatory powers in every aspect of the economy. I think he would admit that as well. Most scholars who work in the tradition of Smith tend to agree on that. You will not that the podcast (and book) I linked are are equally authoritative as he is.
- specialist 9y agoI dunno. Given that The West adopted private capitalism whereas the Warsaw Pact adopted state capitalism: This article's interpretation of Adam's warnings about the failings of both the merchants (chartered monopolists) and politicians directing allocation of resources, against the interests of the citizenry, is spot on. I took the comparison of Thatcher and Stalin to be more about their top-down efforts to remake society based on some unattainable ideal, vs something about economics.