'Adam Smith's Conceptual Sleight-of-Hand'

Jeff Weintraub:

Adam Smith's conceptual sleight-of-hand on exchange, cooperation, and the foundations of social order: This was a response to one section of a post by Brad DeLong containing Snippets: Smith, Marx, Solow: Shoebox for Econ 210a Spring 2014. My attention was caught by the first snippet in this compilation. It posed the question "Exchange and its vicissitudes as fundamental to human psychology and society?" and followed that with a justly famous quotation from Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations. As usual, Brad's question zeroed in on some crucial issues. I was provoked to start writing a message about some of those issues, which I thought would run a few lines ... but it turned out to be a little longer, so I might as well share it. ... [much. much more] ...