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Adam Smith in His Time and Ours: Designing the Decent Society

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I couldn't disagree more with the review of Max Hayes. It would and does shock people to learn that Adam Smith wasn't primarily an economist as we think of the term. The fact that his work was centered around moral philosophy and making people "decent" is widely unknown and most people have never even heard of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Robert Heilbroner said it best when he called Smith "the most quoted and least read of the worldly philophers."

This book is not a biography of Smith, which would probably be pretty boring. It is an examination of his ideas. Muller starts by placing the book in its intellectual context of earlier traditions. Than he turns to an examination of Smith's work as a whole. This is important because to often Smith is limited to The Wealth of Nations, which is only one element of his thought. Muller examines The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Lectures on Jurisprudence to form a more complete picture of Smith as a moral philisopher.

The most important element of this book is the demonstration that Smith was not a defender of unrestrained greed. Smith sought to defend and construct institutions that would channel individual self-interest into benefical results for the whole of society. Nor was he an enemy of government. While it is true that he thought government often proved a danger to the market because of the influence of what we call special interests, Smith did not reject government regulation totally. In fact he argued for regulation of banking and interest rates and advocated using the government to try and correct the negative effects capitalism had on the intellect of the people through public financed education.

Muller writes a compelling book demonstrating that Smith is not the proto-libertarian so many people claim. That in fact Smith would probably be quite dismayed at the uses to which his thoughts have been applied.

I am sure that anyone interested in the history of ideas will enjoy reading this book for its clear exposition of Smith's ideas and their relevance to today's economic, social, and political issues. Muller has a scholar's mastery of Smith's writings as well as a broad knowledge of their intellectual antecedents. The style is jargon-free.

Muller puts Smith in historical context and integrates his major works (Wealth of Nations, Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Lectures on Jurisprudence, the latter surviving only in the form of student notes) to paint a complete picture of Smith as moral philosopher. Smith's philosophy is often mischaracterized as one in which "greed is good" and the market alone is sufficient to attain a civil and productive society. Muller goes far beyond this cartoonish version of Smith to place his appreciation for the market in its proper context and distinguish Smith from contemporaries such as Mandeville and Bentham.

Muller's analysis is well-developed, but his exposition is at times repetitive. The final chapter, in which he attempts to relate Smith's philosophy to contemporary society, is a bit of a throwaway; and Muller is on shakier ground discussing economics than ethics. On balance, though, this is a fascinating and useful book that any student of Adam Smith should own. Despite the book's age, even the twenty-page Guide to Further Reading remains valuable.

Before reading this book I believed that I was aware of the essence of what Adam Smith offered, but I was wrong, and I suspect many others would learn from this book that there is a complexity to Adam Smith's philosophy of which most have not been informed.

Smith has much to say about the role of government, and the negatives of market capitalism, opinions for which he is little known. He also presents a less than sanguine view of the motives and morals of the merchant class. Many of us who think we possess a clear understand of what Adam Smith advocated might find this book enlightening.

To gain such understanding we could simply read the Wealth of Nations in its entirety, but reading Adam Smith in the original can be difficult and tedious. Professor Muller does all the heavy lifting for us, adds his own very substantial erudition, and presents an entertaining and valuable survey of Smith's writings and wisdom along with interesting biographical information.

a very good description of everything

This book is an uninspiring analysis of Smith's work. Nobody who has even a cursory knowledge of Smith's writings would be surprised by what Muller has to say. The basic point that Smith was not a philosopher of unbridled greed is unsurprising. It is not that the thesis of the book is wrong, but it is simply something that could have been said in an article or less. Obviously a lot of hard work went into the book, but it is the product of a mediocre mind.