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Dennis C Rasmussen
Penn State University Press

The Problems and Promise of Commercial Society: Adam Smith's Response to Rousseau

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AuthorDennis C Rasmussen
PublisherPenn State University Press
PublishedJun 18 2020
Book FormatPaperback
ISBN-139780271033495
Dimensions8.9 X 5.9 X 0.5 inches
Weight 0.75 pounds
BISAC
CategoriesBusiness & Economics > Economics - Theory
LanguageEnglish

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Book Description

Adam Smith is popularly regarded as the ideological forefather of laissez-faire capitalism, while Rousseau is seen as the passionate advocate of the life of virtue in small, harmonious communities and as a sharp critic of the ills of commercial society. But, in fact, Smith had many of the same worries about commercial society that Rousseau did and was strongly influenced by his critique. In this first book-length comparative study of these leading eighteenth-century thinkers, Dennis Rasmussen highlights Smith's sympathy with Rousseau's concerns and analyzes in depth the ways in which Smith crafted his arguments to defend commercial society against these charges. These arguments, Rasmussen emphasizes, were pragmatic in nature, not ideological: it was Smith's view that, all things considered, commercial society offered more benefits than the alternatives. Just because of this pragmatic orientation, Smith's approach can be useful to us in assessing the pros and cons of commercial society today and thus contributes to a debate that is too much dominated by both dogmatic critics and doctrinaire champions of our modern commercial society.

Author Bio

Dennis C. Rasmussen is a political theorist whose research focuses on the Enlightenment, the American founding, and the virtues and shortcomings of liberal democracy and market capitalism. He received a Ph.D. from Duke University in 2005 and a B.A. from Michigan State University’s James Madison College in 2000.

Before coming to Syracuse, he held positions at Tufts University, the University of Houston, Brown University and Bowdoin College. He is the author of four books, including “The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought” (Princeton University Press, 2017), which was shortlisted for the Ralph Waldo Emerson Award and named a best book of the year by The Guardian, Bloomberg, Project Syndicate, Australian Book Review and Five Books.

His most recent book is “Fears of a Setting Sun: The Disillusionment of America's Founders” (Princeton University Press, 2021).

Education

Ph.D., Duke University, 2005

Source: Syracuse University

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