ON ADAM SMITHS NEWTONIANISM AND GENERAL ECONOMIC EQUILIBRIUM THEORY

Abstract

It is often assumed that Newton played an important role in shaping Smith’s connection with general economic equilibrium theory. In this essay, the widespread view of Adam Smith as a forerunner of general economic equilibrium theory is challenged. Leonidas Montes argues that the emphasis in scholarly literature on Newton’s influence on Smith is correct, but its nature is misunderstood. He holds that Smith is a sophisticated reader of Newton, but also that Newton’s methodology does not necessarily lead to a notion of equilibrium as in modern general economic equilibrium theory. Smith’s own reading of Newton is interpreted as a consequence of a particular and distinctively Scottish reception of Newton’s ideas. The members of the Scottish Enlightenment did not attribute to Newton an axiomatic-deductive methodology. Rather, it is suggested that the French tradition, which interpreted Newton in the context of a Cartesian emphasis on deduction, adopted and adapted a particular Newtonianism fostering a methodology similar to that of Walras, the father of general economic equilibrium theory.