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The social ecology of Adam Smith : reconsidering the intellectual foundations of political economy
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Steeds, Leo (2022) The social ecology of Adam Smith : reconsidering the intellectual foundations of political economy. New Political Economy, 27 (1). 132-145 . doi:10.1080/13563467.2021.1926956 ISSN 1356-3467.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926956
Abstract
Nearly 250 years on, the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is widely understood as a germinal moment for modern (political) economic analysis. Within political economy, the text continues to be cited not only as the inauguration of a specifically liberal theoretical tradition, but also as a foundational statement of what it means to be doing political economy more broadly. Yet established readings of the work have reproduced, perhaps unwittingly, assumptions about the nature and remit of its content drawn from subsequent economic thought, obscuring crucial environmental ideas that underpinned its main conclusions. Though long overlooked within orthodox readings, Smith in fact insisted that essential to political economic analysis was a careful consideration of the materiality of evolving relationships between societies and the nonhuman environment – an approach that, I suggest, can justifiably be viewed as a kind of ‘social ecology’. Reassessing these theoretical foundations reveals, on the one hand, over-optimistic ecological assumptions that he bequeathed to subsequent liberal political economy. On the other, in light of today’s ecological crisis, it prompts us to reconsider the importance, for political economic analysis more broadly, of a materialised understanding of the relationship between human societies and the earth.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||||||
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Subjects: | H Social Sciences > HB Economic Theory H Social Sciences > HM Sociology |
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Politics and International Studies | ||||||||
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Smith, Adam, 1723-1790 -- Criticism and interpretation, Economics -- Early works to 1800, Wealth -- Early works to 1800 , Social ecology | ||||||||
Journal or Publication Title: | New Political Economy | ||||||||
Publisher: | Routledge | ||||||||
ISSN: | 1356-3467 | ||||||||
Official Date: | 2022 | ||||||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | 27 | ||||||||
Number: | 1 | ||||||||
Page Range: | 132-145 | ||||||||
DOI: | 10.1080/13563467.2021.1926956 | ||||||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||||||
Reuse Statement (publisher, data, author rights): | “This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in New Political Economy on 13/05/2021, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13563467.2021.1926956 | ||||||||
Access rights to Published version: | Open Access (Creative Commons) | ||||||||
Date of first compliant deposit: | 18 May 2021 | ||||||||
Date of first compliant Open Access: | 1 March 2022 |
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