Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The consequences of economic rhetoric
- PART I ECONOMIC RHETORIC: INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTS
- 1 Economics in the human conversation
- 2 Comments from outside economics
- 3 Comments from inside economics
- 4 Rhetoric and ideology
- PART II ECONOMIC RHETORIC: FURTHER ARGUMENTS
- PART III ECONOMIC RHETORIC AMONG ECONOMISTS
- PART IV ECONOMIC RHETORIC IN POLITICS AND JOURNALISM
- PART V ECONOMIC RHETORIC: ITS RHETORIC AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
- 1 Appendix: Other contributors and participants
- Index
4 - Rhetoric and ideology
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 September 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- The consequences of economic rhetoric
- PART I ECONOMIC RHETORIC: INTRODUCTION AND COMMENTS
- 1 Economics in the human conversation
- 2 Comments from outside economics
- 3 Comments from inside economics
- 4 Rhetoric and ideology
- PART II ECONOMIC RHETORIC: FURTHER ARGUMENTS
- PART III ECONOMIC RHETORIC AMONG ECONOMISTS
- PART IV ECONOMIC RHETORIC IN POLITICS AND JOURNALISM
- PART V ECONOMIC RHETORIC: ITS RHETORIC AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
- 1 Appendix: Other contributors and participants
- Index
Summary
Men always endevour to persuade others to be of their opinion even when the matter is of no consequence to them. If one advances anything concerning China or the more distant moon which contradicts what you imagine to be true, you immediately try to persuade him to alter his opinion. And in this manner every one is practicing oratory on others thro the whole of his life.
This is Adam Smith speaking – literally speaking, because the words come from the transcript of his “Lectures on Jurisprudence.” Smith is discussing the “principle in the human mind” on which is based the famous disposition to “truck, barter, and exchange,” the cornerstone on which the equally famous division of labor is based. For the division of labor could not take place unless people wanted to exchange their wares. Evidently, to Smith this exchange did not take place because of the direct appeal of self-interest. It required an exercise of persuasion to convince the buyer that he would be better off exchanging whatever he had for what the seller offered. “The offering of a shilling, which to us appears to have so plain and simple a meaning,” says Smith, “is in reality offering an argument to persuade one to do so and so for it is in his interest.”
Thus, in the opinion of the first, and to many still the greatest, economist, the basis for economic relationships lies not in a disinterested calculation of advantages, but in the “faculties of reason and speech” that underlie the capacity for persuasion. Rhetoric – the art of speaking – is the rock on which the mighty edifice of economics stands.
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- The Consequences of Economic Rhetoric , pp. 38 - 44Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1989
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