The Profound Wisdom—And Humanitarianism—Of Adam Smith (David R. Hendersen)

The Profound Wisdom—And Humanitarianism—Of Adam Smith (David R, Handerson) I don’t want to let 2023 pass without paying tribute to arguably the most important birthday three hundred years ago: that of economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. Smith wrote two important books: his lesser-known The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS) published in 1759 and his well-known An Inquiry …

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“The Tradition of Spontaneous Order” (Norman Barry)

Source The theory of spontaneous order has a long tradition in the history of social thought, yet it would be true to say that, until the last decade, it was all but eclipsed in the social science of the twentieth century. For much of this period the idea of spontaneous order—that most of those things …

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18.2: Spontaneous and Nonspontaneous Processes

Processes have a natural tendency to occur in one direction under a given set of conditions. Water will naturally flow downhill, but uphill flow requires outside intervention such as the use of a pump. A spontaneous process is one that occurs naturally under certain conditions. A nonspontaneous process, on the other hand, will not take place unless it is …

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