Questions on the Second Coming of Adam Smith

Introduction

1.        What is the name of the book considered to be Adam Smith’s greatest work?

2.        Name five of the enlightened thinkers, who pioneered the use of the scientific method, and in whose path Adam Smith followed?

3.        In what city of Scotland did Adam Smith grow up?

4.        What book of David Hume influenced Smith to the extent that he abandoned his study of theology?

5.        What subject did Smith teach at the University of Glasgow in 1748?

6.        What is the name of the radical teacher of moral philosophy that Smith replaced at the University of Glasgow and in whose traditions Smith followed?

7.        Which of today’s political philosophies is more closely aligned with the historically radical views of Smith, liberal or conservative?

8.        When and at what school did “economics” first become a university program?

9.        In the student’s notes taken from one of Smith’s lecture, what did he note down as being the, “great cause of public opulence (wealth)?”

10.     In the student’s notes taken from one of Smith’s lecture, what did he note down as being “foolishly imagined” about gold and silver?

Smith the Philosopher

11.     What was the first important book that Smith wrote in 1759 that brought him a mark of fame?

12.     In his 1759 book, what role does Smith ascribe to the “impartial spectator”?

13.     What important early psychologist did Smith’s work foreshadow?

To France and Physiocrats

14.     Why did Smith resign from the University of Glasgow in 1764?

15.     What person connected Smith (though by many degrees of separation) to the Boston Tea Party?

16.     What French city was the first stop his pupil’s tour of Europe?

17.     What famous enlightened thinker did Smith meet with in Geneva?

18.     What famous enlightened thinker did Smith meet with in Paris?

19.     Who was the founder of the Physiocrat’s school of economics, and known to his students as “master”, “father”, and “the modern Socrates”?

20.     What was the name of the chart that Physiocrats used to show the circulation of income in the economy?

21.     What were the two chief points of the Physiocrats?

22.     What three producers in the economy did the Physiocrats claim produced no wealth, but only rather shifted it?

23.     Where the Physiocrats advocates of “free trade”?

24.     What brought about the end of Smith’s European tour in 1766?

25.     For how many years did Smith then work on his book back in his hometown?

The Wealth of Nations

26.     In what month and year was the Wealth of Nations published?

27.     How many pages is the Wealth of Nations?

28.     Considering the goal of the book, what “laws” did Smith attempt to explain?

29.     In discovering the “laws” of economics, Smith first attempted to uncover the “propensities” of human beings.  In identifying the first propensity, what conclusion did he come to about how all humans want to live?

30.     According to Smith, how often are humans satisfied with their situation in life, “without any wish of alteration or improvement?”

31.     What second propensity does Smith identify as being “common to all men?”

32.     To increase the wealth of nations, Smith argues that society should do what with these natural drives (propensities)?

33.     In one of Smith’s most quoted passages, what does he point out as being the prime-mover of wealth, or, to use his metaphor, getting one’s dinner?

34.     So if everyone one is given free reign to pursue their own self-interest, does Smith think that anarchy and chaos could be the end result?

35.     What does Smith propose will be the result for whole society if each individual seeks to promote their own self-interest?

36.     What is the metaphor Smith so famously coined for the force that directs each individual’s selfishness to create public wealth?

37.     What does Smith’s metaphor merely symbolize, and which is the true orchestrator of social harmony?

38.     What is it that, “leads a self-interested person to wake up in the morning, look outside at the earth and produce from its raw materials, not what he wants, but what others want?”

The Free Market at Work

39.     What kind of resources was John, the vulture sculptor, using up?

40.     What is the term used to describe a group of business that come together for the purpose of fixing prices?

41.     What are the two signals that tell entrepreneurs what to produce and what price to charge?

42.     In the long run, why is it so difficult for a business to keep earning above normal profits?

The Division of Labor

43.     What three factors does the invisible hand regulate?

44.     What is the three word answer for the question of what increases the wealth of nations?

45.     In the example of the manufacturing of a pin, what percentage of productivity did the division of labor bring to the process?

46.     How many reasons did Smith cite for explaining how the division of labor lifts output?

47.     How many reasons did Smith cite for explaining why some jobs will be higher paid than others?

The Division of Labor Among Towns and Countries

48.     If “division of labor” is one component of what brings wealth to a nation, then what is the second?

49.     According to Smith, which products should be imported?

50.     According to the philosopher, Hayek, the best way for each person to promote the public good is to look after whom?

51.     For what reason does Ludwig von Mises conclude that a socialist economic system could not work?

A Theme for the Common Man

52.     Which class of society was Smith convinced that free trade and division of labor would benefit the most?

53.     In a centrally planned economy, what is the determinant of economic position and opportunity?

54.     Was Smith a supporter of public education?

55.     What did Smith see as the chief engine of economic growth?

What three forces can cause labor to accelerate its potential?

56.     ______

57.     ______

58.     ______

59.     Who is the modern Nobel prize-winning economist that used complex statistical techniques to prove Smith’s contention that innovation results in higher standards of living?

Policies and Practice

60.     Which U.S. President was looking for a one-armed economist?

61.      Smith warned the legislators that whom would press hard against those measures that increase the wealth of nations?

Domestic Trade Restrictions

62.     Name one law of Smith’s era that he was opposed to because it was a domestic trade restriction?

63.     What are the two American laws (acts), enacted at the tail end of the Gilded Age, which restrain corporations from price-fixing and other anti-competitive practices?

64.      Which company in the 1990s was often scrutinized by the government for concern over monopolistic practices in the computer software industry?

International Trade Restrictions

65.     What two tools do governments use to force consumers to pay higher prices than necessary in order to subsidize merchants?

66.     What policy that Smith rejects is partly to blame for the Great Depression?

67.     Why did Smith allow that Britain could protect its ship building industry with tariffs?

What were the three roles that Smith gave to government?

68.     ____

69.     ____

70.     ____

The Second Coming

71.     What three major industries did President Reagan, in the tradition of Adam Smith, leave to the invisible hand?

72.     What is the effect called when ideas and technologies travel (slosh) across borders, usually having emanated from the freest economies?

73.     In what year did Adam Smith die?