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ADAM SMITH AND THE NEO-LIBERAL PARADIGM: ON THE ESSENTIAL NATURE OF TRUST, AND REBALANCING CAPITAL

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 October 2023

Ronald MacDonald
Ronald MacDonald*
Affiliation:
Adam Smith Business School, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK
*
Email: ronald.macdonald@glasgow.ac.uk
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Abstract

The key aim of this article is to reassess the societal consequences of the adoption of neo-liberal policies, post-1970, in the light of the writings of Adam Smith. We make two main points: First, the neo-liberal paradigm (NLP) and its characteristics are not the creation of Adam Smith as asserted by leading economists and, indeed, the contrary is very much the case. Second, given this, what does Adam Smith’s work tell us about how we can fix modern-day capitalism broken by the NLP and bring it back in line with Smith’s work?

Keywords

neo-liberalismsocial capitalthe marketthe corporationAdam Smith

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
National Institute Economic Review , Volume 265: Special issue: "ADAM SMITH@300" , Autumn 2023 , pp. 105 - 143
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of National Institute Economic Review

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