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On the Bicentennial of the other “Inquiry”: Lauderdale's

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Syed Ahmad
Affiliation:
Department of Economics, McMaster University, Hamilton, Canada, L8S 4M4.

Extract

James Maitland, Lord Lauderdale published his An Inquiry into the Nature and Origin of Public Wealth and into the Means and Causes of its Increase (1804) only twentyeight years after the publication of the “Inquiry”: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith. A comparison of the titles strongly suggests some relationship, and indeed even glancing through the first few pages of Lauderdale's book confirms this conjecture. The book takes off as a critique of Smith's, and by-and-large remains so till the end. Many of the elements of his criticism can be seen in the difference in the wording of the titles of the two books. Except for “Nations” all the significant words in Smith's title are included in Lauderdale's, but he adds three more: “Origin,” “Means” and “Public” (which is not a substitute for the omitted “Nation”). As we shall see, in his view, ignoring these led to major deficiencies in Smith's work, and Lauderdale set out to point them out, and if possible, to correct them.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The History of Economics Society 2007

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