IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/osf/socarx/nw5rk.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What’s Not to See? Foucault on Invisible Political Economy in Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson

Author

Listed:
  • Heath, Eugene

Abstract

In his lectures of 1978-1979, published posthumously as The Birth of Biopolitics, Michel Foucault addressed versions of liberalism in which an invisible market appears immune to government intervention. Among the thinkers discussed were Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson. This essay offers critical reflections on Foucault’s description of Smith as emphasizing the invisibility of the economy, as well as on Foucault’s interpretation of the “invisible hand” and his ascription of egoism to Smith’s economic agents. Foucault also appeals to Ferguson’s notion of civil society to resolve incompatibilities between economic agents and the sovereign. However, Ferguson’s theory of society does not provide the assistance that Foucault thinks it does. Moreover, like Smith, Ferguson holds no egoistic view of economic motivation. Nonetheless, and surprisingly, Foucault would have found enticing Ferguson’s use of conjectural history, with its appeal to the unintended, contingent, and conflictual basis of social change.

Suggested Citation

  • Heath, Eugene, 2023. "What’s Not to See? Foucault on Invisible Political Economy in Adam Smith and Adam Ferguson," SocArXiv nw5rk, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:socarx:nw5rk
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/nw5rk
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://osf.io/download/644bc87518ff916af404893d/
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.31219/osf.io/nw5rk?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nils Goldschmidt, 2018. "The Philosophy of Social Market Economy: Michel Foucault’s Analysis of Ordoliberalism," Schmollers Jahrbuch : Journal of Applied Social Science Studies / Zeitschrift für Wirtschafts- und Sozialwissenschaften, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 138(2), pages 157-184.
    2. Callum Williams, 2015. "Famine: Adam Smith and Foucauldian Political Economy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 62(2), pages 171-190, May.
    3. Kirk Willis, 1979. "The Role in Parliament of the Economic Ideas of Adam Smith, 1776–1800," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 11(4), pages 505-544, Winter.
    4. Nils Goldschmidt & Hermann Rauchenschwandtner, 2018. "The Philosophy of Social Market Economy: Michel Foucault´s Analysis of Ordoliberalism," Journal of Contextual Economics (JCE) – Schmollers Jahrbuch, Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 138(2), pages 157-184.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Kolev, Stefan, 2024. "When Liberty Presupposes Order: F. A. Hayek’S Contextual Ordoliberalism," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 46(2), pages 288-311, June.
    2. Roland Fritz & Nils Goldschmidt & Matthias Störring, 2023. "Contextual liberalism: the ordoliberal approach to private vices and public benefits," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 195(3), pages 301-322, June.
    3. repec:osf:socarx:8nhr5_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Kolev, Stefan, 2021. "When liberty presupposes order: F. A. Hayek's learning ordoliberalism," Freiburg Discussion Papers on Constitutional Economics 21/2, Walter Eucken Institut e.V..
    5. S. J. Thompson, 2013. "The first income tax, political arithmetic, and the measurement of economic growth," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(3), pages 873-894, August.
    6. Erik W. Matson, 2022. "What is liberal about Adam Smith's “liberal plan”?," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 89(2), pages 593-610, October.
    7. Perelman, Michael, 2010. "Adam Smith: Class, labor, and the industrial revolution," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 76(3), pages 481-496, December.
    8. Maurício C. Coutinho & Carlos Eduardo Suprinyak, 2018. "Steuart, Smith, and the ‘system of commerce’: international trade and monetary theory in late-18th century british political economy," Textos para Discussão Cedeplar-UFMG 575, Cedeplar, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais.
    9. repec:hal:journl:dumas-00910208 is not listed on IDEAS

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:osf:socarx:nw5rk. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: OSF (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arabixiv.org .

    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.