Hi guys,

I found an article about Adam Smith in The Economist. I put the link at the end of this post but for those who are interested with the context, it is claimed that Smith has been misinterpreted.

For instance, in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he suggests that philosophers need to cultivate themselves in order to solve world's crucial problems. Other labors such as butchers or bakers, on the other hand, do not require that self cultivation. They just need to do their job well by being self interested. So, Mr Fitzgibbons suggests that "not all occupations are pursued with the same low motive in mind". At that point, we can say that as one of the most well-known economists in the history, Smith did not intented to suggest that selfishness is not the only driving force for human nature.

From that idea, I would like to ask you what you are thinking about his suggestions about the relationship between human nature and division of labor. As many economist did after Smith, most of the people argued his understanding of human nature. The reason was even though he accepts human nature as selfish and generated a theory depending on that, humans are also tend to corrupt the system for their own benefit. Therefore, self interest might harm the total economic well being. I wondered if Smith is misunderstood about the driving forces for human nature, how we can expand his ideas in correlation with human psychology?

In the following passages in the article, we see his concern about divisive effect that comes with economic specializations. In response to that concern, he wanted to create an expenditure on "publick diversions" in order to unite people under certain titles such as "rank and fortune" and "low condition". This "social division of labor" can be considered as a consequence of the challenges of his economic theory over human nature. I believe it is not practical or useful if we put that idea into action since it would create significant differences among different social classes in the society. So, we know Smith evaluated human psychology and came up with certain ideas of human nature, however, I believe he fell short about that.

You can reach the article from here