Self-interest, sympathy and the invisible hand: from Adam Smith to market liberalism

Adam Smith rejected Mandeville’s invisible-hand doctrine of ‘private vices, publick benefits’. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments his model of the ‘impartial spectator’ is driven by not by sympathy for other people, but by their approbation. Approbation needs to be authenticated, and in Smith’s model...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Offer, A
Format: Working paper
Language:English
Published: University of Oxford 2012