...Maria Pia Paganelli Abstract What are the causes of prosperity? In addition to the division of labor, saving, capital accumulation, and good institutions, Adam Smith explains opulence through vanity and luck, two variables we tend to forget today. For Smith, wealth comes from our propensity...

... behavior. In passing rather than in depth Mason suggests that Rae’s and Veblen’s approaches to conspicuous consumption were dissimilar: Rae “argued that there was one very simple motivation for the excesses and luxury of expenditures of his own times-that of vanity” (1981, 3-4)’ whereas Veblen...

..., it is a principle of human preservation. The Desire for Social Esteem The need for means of preservation is not confined to basic subsistence. Unlike any other animal, for human beings “distinctions of colour, form, variety or vanity, and imitation” could cause so big a difference in preference that “even...

... the word by asso ciating it with vices like pride and vanity: Lorsque le célebre M De La Rochefoucault dit que lʼamour-propre est le principe de toutes nos actions, combien lʼignorance de la vraie signi- fi cation de ce mot amour-propre ne souleva-t-elle pas de gens contre cet illustre...

...- fer. But that is not quite the whole explanation. Having described the poor man’s son’s “ambition” in terms of the “prin- ciple” of infatuation with “the exact adjustment of the means for attaining any conveniency or pleasure,” Smith introduces “vanity,” if only briefly, to explain why some...

..., the history of distribution theory in twentieth-century economics, and the ethics of trade in inalienable goods. David M. Levy is director of the Center for Public Choice and a professor of eco- nomics at George Mason University. The Sandra Peart–David Levy volume, The “Vanity of the Philosopher”: From...

... the heliocentric system of Copernicus to the marquise, he explains it in terms of humbling our vanity. The great contribution that Copernicus gave us is humility. Copernicus humbled our arrogance by letting us see that we are not the center of the universe but we are just one planet in a multitude: “He...

... more than a little removed from the vanity concerning appearance that affected many in this social milieu (Phillipson 2010, 260). We also have the evidence of Smith himself, who, on his appoint- ment as controller of customs, proceeded to burn many of the fashionable items that he did possess...

... Ricardo would do fifteen years later. The first part of Garnier's Abrégé of 1796, that devoted to “laws or principles,” begins with a definition of wealth: All material things of which a man can make use to satisfy a need or enjoyment of the senses, of imagination, or of vanity, are covered...

... Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Levy, David M., and Sandra J. Peart. 2005 . The “Vanity of the Philosopher”: From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics . Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Medema, Steven G. Forthcoming. The Hesitant Hand: Market and State in the History...

... may be his profession, thinks he ought to live like other men of large revenues; and to spend a great deal of his time in festivity, in vanity, and in dissipation. But in a clergyman this train of life not only consumes the time which ought to be employed in the duties of his function...

..., and goods ministering to vanity. We believed that “every class has its own standard of comforts and indulgences necessary to its station; a standard propor- tional to its income, and usually determined by what that income is” (newspaper writings [1833], 553). Some of these goods are consumed...

..., the book is interesting because of the tact and charity of his performance. His method requires him to judge them in the light of hindsight, but he avoids all of the temptations to vanity that hindsight so often induces. The method used by Professor Duncan is more controversial when he asks...

... and incomplete rep- resentations of the reality of their own times” (p. 187). Even so, the book is interesting because of the tact and charity of his performance. His method requires him to judge them in the light of hindsight, but he avoids all of the temptations to vanity that hindsight so often...

... and tacking it on a string of compliments: “To be sure, singleness of purpose, elevated piety, desire for perfection, and a self-conducted adjudication that pronounces the results to be ‘wonderful’ are not uncompromised by presumption and vanity” (59). 542 History of Political Economy 23:3 (1991...

... James Steuart and Adam Smith ending up somewhere in between. Berry considers a number of issues, includ- ing defense and military valor, division of labor and human degradation, luxury and greed, self-love and vanity. In the final chapter, Berry summarizes and highlights what is distinct about...

... definition of these terms: “In so far as any commodity, when compared with another, excels it only in the gratification it affords to vanity, it is to be consid- ered a luxury, in so far as it compares with others in the capacity which its physical qualities give it to gratify real wants...

... by presumption and vanity” (59). ...

... References Peart Sandra J. Levy David M. . 2005 . The “Vanity of the Philosopher”: From Equality to Hierarchy in Post-Classical Economics . Ann Arbor : University of Michigan Press . Smith Adam . ( 1776 ) 1904 . An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations...

... explain his easy abandonment of mathematics when he failed to come in first in the 1865 mathematical tripos. Marshall’s vanity, visible in this and in other matters, assisted in making this hypothesis. That vanity was explicitly remarked on by the artist William Rothenstein. As the painter...