Plundering the liberal philosophical tradition? The use or abuse of Adam Smith in Parliament, 1919-2023

Zachary Greene; Jan M. Jasinski; Graeme Roy; Thomas Schober; Thomas J. Scotto

doi:10.1017/nie.2023.23

Plundering the liberal philosophical tradition? The use or abuse of Adam Smith in Parliament, 1919-2023

Zachary Greene, Jan M. Jasinski, Graeme Roy^*, Thomas Schober, Thomas J. Scotto

^*Corresponding author for this work

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Abstract

The contemporary relevance of Adam Smith is evidenced by continued reference to his name. Computational analysis identifies over 700 mentions of Smith and his two famous works—The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations—in post-World War 1 House of Commons debates. We find some parliamentarians appreciate Smith’s complex ideas, but most references are ‘ornamental’. Charting Smith’s use over the decades, this paper builds on Kirk Willis’ idea that studying parliamentary debates are an ideal way to understand how, at best, policy ideas, germinate and disseminate over time, or, at worst, how ‘complex ideas became slogans’.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	144-156
Number of pages	13
Journal	National Institute Economic Review
Volume	265
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1017/nie.2023.23
Publication status	Published - 7 Nov 2023

Funding

Portions of this work were supported by funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research & innovation programme under grant agreement No 951832 as part of the OPTED project.

Keywords

Adam Smith
UK parliament
Hansard
qualitative analysis

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10.1017/nie.2023.23

Greene-etal-NIER-2023-The-use-or-abuse-of-Adam-Smith-in-Parliament-1919-2023Accepted author manuscript, 525 KBLicence: CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

Cite this

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Plundering the liberal philosophical tradition? The use or abuse of Adam Smith in Parliament, 1919-2023

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Keywords

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