Adam Smith

Philosophy of Business: William Kline interview

Professor Kline visited Rockford College on Tuesday to give a talk on four major thinkers — Hobbes, Locke, Hume, and Smith — who in large part established the intellectual framework for our modern business world. Kline is a professor of philosophy at the University of Illinois, Springfield. Here is my seven-minute follow-up interview with Kline

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Seminar: Philosophy and the Evolution of the Mixed Economy

One of my talks at Francisco Marroquín University was on making sense of our mixed economy–an unwieldy combination of market and socialist elements. The 28-minute talk integrates themes from my intellectual heroes–Smith, Mill, Mises, Hayek, Rand, Popper, Friedman, Buchanan, and Tullock–and connects market economics, politics, ethics, history, and public choice to explaining our semi-coherent mixed

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Interview with Douglas Den Uyl on “The Essence of Capitalism”

Douglas Den Uyl spoke at Rockford College on four competing (and/or compatible?) theories of the nature of capitalism: Milton Friedman’s “Utility” account, Friedrich Hayek’s “Epistemic” account, Adam Smith’s “Aesthetic” account, and Ayn Rand’s “Self-Fulfillment” account. Here is my sixteen-minute interview with Dr. Den Uyl following his lecture: Part 1: Part 2: Cross-posted at the CEE

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APEE talk on the mixed economy

At the APEE conference next month in Las Vegas, I will be presenting “The Evolution of the Mixed Economy – A Schematic Approach.” My talk integrates themes from several major thinkers from whom I have learned a great deal: Adam Smith, Ludwig von Mises, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, James Buchanan, and Gordon Tullock.

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Reading group on Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

My colleagues in the Department of Philosophy, Shawn Klein and Matthew Flamm, will be leading a reading group on Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Adam Smith is best known as an economist and a critic of mercantilism and as an early advocate of market economies. Less well known is Smith the moral philosopher.

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