IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cup/apsrev/v110y2016i02p342-352_00.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Adam Smith on What Is Wrong with Economic Inequality

Author

Listed:
  • RASMUSSEN, DENNIS C.

Abstract

This article explores Adam Smith's attitude toward economic inequality, as distinct from the problem of poverty, and argues that he regarded it as a double-edged sword. On the one hand, as has often been recognized, Smith saw a high degree of economic inequality as an inevitable result of a flourishing commercial society, and he considered a certain amount of such inequality to be positively useful as a means of encouraging productivity and bolstering political stability. On the other hand, it has seldom been noticed that Smith also expressed deep worries about some of the other effects of extreme economic inequality—worries that are, moreover, interestingly different from those that dominate contemporary discourse. In Smith's view, extreme economic inequality leads people to sympathize more fully and readily with the rich than the poor, and this distortion in our sympathies in turn undermines both morality and happiness.

Suggested Citation

  • Rasmussen, Dennis C., 2016. "Adam Smith on What Is Wrong with Economic Inequality," American Political Science Review, Cambridge University Press, vol. 110(2), pages 342-352, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:110:y:2016:i:02:p:342-352_00
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/S0003055416000113/type/journal_article
    File Function: link to article abstract page
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Carlos Rodríguez Braun, 2021. "Adam Smith’s liberalism," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 34(4), pages 465-478, December.
    2. Richard Rodger, 2022. "Property and inequality: Housing dynamics in a nineteenth‐century city," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 75(4), pages 1151-1181, November.
    3. Kristen R. Collins, 2023. "Michelle Schwarze, recognizing resentment: Sympathy, injustice, and liberal political thought," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 36(4), pages 605-609, December.
    4. Kristen R. Collins, 2020. "Observed without Sympathy: Adam Smith on Inequality and Spectatorship," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 64(4), pages 1034-1046, October.
    5. Douglas A. Irwin, 2020. "Adam Smith's “tolerable administration of justice” and the Wealth of Nations," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 67(3), pages 231-247, July.
    6. Baogui Xin & Wei Peng & Yekyung Kwon & Yanqin Liu, 2019. "Modeling, discretization, and hyperchaos detection of conformable derivative approach to a financial system with market confidence and ethics risk," Papers 1903.12267, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2019.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cup:apsrev:v:110:y:2016:i:02:p:342-352_00. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Kirk Stebbing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cambridge.org/psr .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.