In his posthumously published two-volume work, An Austrian Perspective on the History of Economic Thought (1995), Murray Rothbard charged Adam Smith with carelessly steering economics away from the sound doctrines of his “proto-Austrian” predecessors. However, a fair reading of Smith reveals that it was Rothbard who was guilty of sloppy scholarship and fuzzy thinking.

James C. W. Ahiakpor is a Professor of Economics at California State University, East Bay.
Economic PolicyEconomistsEconomyFree Market EconomicsPhilosophy and Religion
Other Independent Review articles by James C. W. Ahiakpor
Summer 2008 Mystifying the Concept of Capital: Hernando de Soto’s Misdiagnosis of the Hindrance to Economic Development in the Third World
Spring 2008 Letters to the Editor
Fall 2007 On Classical Economics
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