Smith at 300: The Lure of Poetry and Profit

Smith at 300: Contribution by Erwin Dekker "It might be true that no one has made a ‘bargain’ in verse as Smith suggested. But new products will be advertised, packaged, and launched in ‘verse’. The eighteenth-century trader speaking precise and pointedly has been supplemented, if not replaced by the designer, the (m)ad man and the PR-manager. They have incorporated what Smith already recognized in his lectures on rhetoric: “The best prose composition, the best oratorical discourse does not affect us half so much [as poetry].” An engineer might believe that economics is about production and the stuff, but Smith knew all along that the economics was a humanistic endeavor, where the fluff cannot be separated from the stuff. In Smith’s humanomics perspective we see a world where traders develop language to interact with each other, where ornaments and elegance create a diversity of goods and services, and where marketing campaigns and inspirational stories entice us to explore the new. Call it ‘the lure of poetry and profit.’ "