By Vernon L. Smith, Brianne Wolf, Leonidas Montes, Caroline Breashears, and Peter S. Onuf
June 2023 marks the 300th anniversary of Adam Smith's birth. Celebrations of this tercentenary abound, notably at our sister site, AdamSmithWorks. Most often known as the father or modern economics, OLL readers know that Smith's thought was much broader than just that. In fact, political economy as we know it did not quite exist yet in Smith's time; Smith was in fact a professor of Moral Philosophy.
In this month's Liberty Matters, we're looking back at Adam Smith's legacy, and we can think of no better scholar to start than Nobel laureate Vernon L. Smith, who attributes much of his path-breaking work to his own discovery of Adam Smith. In his lead essay, Vernon Smith ties together not just the Wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments, he also brings Smith's posthumous Lectures on Jurisprudence into sharp relief. Vernon Smith will be joined by several other broad ranging scholars- Brianne Wolf, Leonidas Montes, Caroline Breashears, and Peter Onuf. We are delighted to bring you this forum in cooperation with our friends at Law & Liberty.
By Paulina Kewes, Ioannis D. Evrigenis, Michael Valdez Moses, and Filippo Sabetti
The rise and fall of the Roman republic continued to influence political thought for centuries after its demise. In this Liberty Matters, we invited a group of scholars, led by Paulina Kewes, to consider the influence of this history on the political thought and culture of early modern Europe. What did the rise and decline of this republican ancestor have to teach early moderns (and perhaps us today!) about the political and moral milieu within which we live?
Kewes is joined by Ioannis Evrigenis, Filippo Sabetti, and Michael Moses in this exploration of the continued relevance of this ancient republic.
By Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, Orville Vernon Burton, Nicole Etcheson, and Erec Smith
Revolution (n) "a forcible overthrow of a government or social order, in favor of a new system."
How many constitutional revolutions has America experienced? Certainly all agree on the first. Was there another constitutional revolution after the Civil War with Reconstruction? Did Reconstruction actually accomplish the goals it was intended for, or do "old habits die hard?" We posed these questions to a group of scholars to get their takes. Read on as the conversation unfolds in this month's Liberty Matters.
By Giandomenica Becchio, Mikayla Novak, Arnold Kling, and Jayme Lemke
What is feminist economics? Is it a complement or subsitute for standard economic analysis? Regardless, why do we need it today? These are the questions that animate this Liberty Matters symposium. Led by Professor Giandomenica Becchio, four scholars will each take their turn at providing answers to these questions.
Becchio reminds us in her opening essay, "Any social phenomenon has many possible causes and correlations, so both the explanations mentioned above are partial. They might coexist: Sometimes discrimination is evident; sometimes gender inequality is not a matter of discrimination. Anyway, the phenomenon of gender inequality exists."