Vernon Smith (Channeling Adam Smith) on Oren Cass on Phil Gramm and Mike Solon on “It’s a Wonderful Life”
In response to my latest open letter to Oren Cass, my emeritus Nobel-laureate colleague, Vernon Smith, sent to me the following e-mail. I share it here in full with Vernon’s kind permission.
Don:
I think George Bailey is a model of a person following Adam Smith’s principle of freedom in modern parlance: Every person, so long as they do not violate the laws of justice, should be perfectly free to follow their own interest in their own way.
Smith never championed individualism as a pursuit of the selfish or self interest, knowing that moral sentiments allowed one’s “own interest” to include everything from selfish to other-regarding compassionist interest.
Those who have claimed otherwise, that Smith championed the pursuit of self interest, misread his text (as above) in Wealth [of Nations], and certainly did not read (or understand if they did) [The Theory of Moral] Sentiments.
For a correction see our book:
Regards,….Vernon
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