IASS 2025

Session

C.2 SESSION: SOME OF SMITH’S CATEGORIES REVISITED (JOINT SESSION WITH AISPE)

28 Mar 2025, 14:00

ROOM 2

27. Smith read and interpreted by Say

Alessandro Le Donne (Università di Torino), Prof. Riccardo Soliani (Università di Genova)

28/03/2025, 14:00

From the very first pages of his Traité d'économie politique, Jean-Baptiste Say, holder of the first chair of political economy in France, set about interpreting and disseminating the ideas of Adam Smith, which he had learnt about at an early age and which had inspired him to study political economy. Say praised Smith's wisdom in explaining production in agriculture and manufacturing, but...

17. The capitalism of the “prudent man” and the “spirit of capitalism”: a comparison between A. Smith and the representatives of the GHS (Weber and Sombart)

Vitantonio Gioia

28/03/2025, 14:30

The “prudent man” characterises the Smithian model of capitalism. An economic system characterised by the ‘prudent’ behaviour of the entrepreneur, in which the risk assessment of economic enterprise seems to be subordinated to social rules. Smith is well aware that “human
nature” is complex and, because of the contradictory “passions” that determine it, is not given in its characters once and...

16. Benevolence as charity, relations of subordination and gift in Adam Smith

Stefano Fiori (University of Torino)

28/03/2025, 15:00

In the famous passage of the butcher, the brewer and the baker, after having pointed out that one can obtain one’s subsistence not from “benevolence”, but from the interest of others, Smith maintains that only beggars depend on the “benevolence of their fellow citizens”. However, he adds that, to be precise, even they must resort to the market.
Both beggars and domestic animals, such as dogs,...