Smith's Vision Research Articles

Manhattan's Street Trees: An Unfinished Public Health Story.

Stephen Smith launched a 40-year effort to bring trees to New York City streets in 1872, the year he founded the American Public Health Association (APHA). Smith argued that street trees would mitigate the adverse health effects of Manhattan's summer heat and help purify the air. The young APHA endorsed Smith's position and gave trees a prominent role in urban sanitation, but public health turned away from trees and urban reform movements as it adopted a biomedical public health model in the late 19th century. Nevertheless, Smith wrote and campaigned for a successful 1902 law requiring the New York City Parks Department to assume management of street trees in the name of public health. He then led a 1914 campaign to force the department to uphold his law. New York's street tree program has had an erratic trajectory, but it now generally follows Smith's vision. Public health could play a bigger role in creating greener cities and mitigating climate change with more field research and the health in all policies approach that Smith used to bring trees to Manhattan's streets in 1914. (Am J Public Health. Published online ahead of print October 31, 2024:e1-e9. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2024.307856).

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Drum Rhythms and Golden Scriptures: Reasons for Mormon Conversion Within Haiti's Culture of Vodou

Visions and Realities in Hong Kong Anglican Mission Schools, 1849–1941

This article explores the tension between missionary hopes for mass conversion through Christian education and the reality of operating mission schools in one colonial context: Hong Kong. Riding on the wave of British imperial expansion, George Smith, the first bishop of the diocese of Victoria, had a vision for mission schooling in colonial Hong Kong. In 1851, Smith established St Paul's College as an Anglo-Chinese missionary institution to educate, equip and send out Chinese young people who would subsequently participate in mission work before evangelizing the whole of China. However, Smith's vision failed to take institutional form as the college encountered operational difficulties and graduates opted for more lucrative employment instead of church work. Moreover, the colonial government moved from a laissez-faire to a more hands-on approach in supervising schools. The bishops of Victoria were compelled to reshape their schools towards more sustainable institutional forms while making compromises regarding their vision for Christian education.

The “Wisdom of the State”: Adam Smith on China and Tartary

Adam Smith's engagement with China and Tartary is a central yet underappreciated element of his economic and political thought. This article reconstructs this engagement and demonstrates its broader significance, arguing that it focuses on three themes: the economic institutions that promote domestic growth in a manner that alleviates the material conditions of the poorest, the social and political conditions that minimize the dependence of the poor on the wealthy, and the ethical values and civic institutions that guarantee the existential survival of the state. This treatment is significant for three reasons: It offers useful insight into the contested issue of Smith's conception of legitimate state action; it clarifies Smith's vision of a commercial order that promotes human dignity; and it reveals the depth of his participation in a specific contextual debate.

The Community of Commerce:

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the rhetoric of the famous opening sections of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, drawing on his understanding of sympathy as developed in The Theory of Moral Sentiments and the theory of rhetoric developed in the Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres. It shows how Smith uses rhetorical means for sketching a vision of an egalitarian society, united by sympathetic ties, that includes not only author and reader but also the characters that appear in the first scenes of the Wealth of Nations. Yet Smith's vision is deceptively one-sided and “rhetorical” in a problematic sense, departing from the impartiality Smith usually recommends. This one-sidedness points to a systematic problem of commercial society in Smith's time as well as today: the unequal ability of its members to use rhetoric and thereby to attract sympathy from others.

Mormonism: a historical encyclopedia

Covering its historic development, important individuals, and central ideas and issues, this encyclopedia offers broad historical coverage of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. * 140 entries on individuals, places, events, and issues * An overview section of six essays tracing the history of Mormonism from Joseph Smith's vision to years of global expansion that began in the mid-20th century * 50 contributors who are among the world's foremost scholars on the Mormon religion and its history * A chronology of Mormonism from its beginnings in upstate New York to its current status as a globalized church headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah * A bibliography of the latest scholarship on Mormon history

Adam Smith's Vision of the Ethical Manager

In the field of business ethics, Adam Smith has generally been viewed with a measure of suspicion. Smith's famous invocation of the invisible hand - according to which self-interest promotes the greater good - has generally been seen as a fundamental challenge to a discipline committed to the opposite premise that the public interest cannot be advanced unless the egoism of economic actors is restrained by a more socially conscious mindset. To the extent that Adam Smith has been brought into the fold of the discipline, it has involved showing that his authority cannot be summoned to fully support the free market sceptics of business ethics. Little has thus far been done, however, to illustrate that Smith's moral writings actually contain the fundamentals of a business ethics teaching. This paper analyzes his moral thought with a view to inferring a Smithean framework of business ethics to guide managers. In sympathy with the field, Smith holds that self-interest ought to be subordinated to moral imperatives, even in the business world. Against the grain of the field, though, Smith rejects the principles of corporate social responsibility on the argument that benevolent impulses cannot be expected to prevail in the commercial arena. Instead of consciously trying to advance the social good, Smith's ideal manager will endeavor to personally live up to the standards enforced by an impartial spectator of his conduct. This internalized onlooker expects a limited degree of benevolence, a constant exercise of moderation, along with the occasional exhibition of magnanimity whenever challenging situations arise. Still, the overriding demand is for the manager to abide by the dictums of justice and prudence. While the Smithean inspired manager will never reach the pinnacle of virtue, they can do better than merely adopt enlightened self-interest as their lodestar.

Capitalism and the Tax System: A Search for Social Justice

America is a country founded on ideas. The Enlightenment was one set of ideas that attended our birth and one Enlightenment belief as strong today as during the revolution is our faith in capitalism and the protection of private property. Yet, the United States tax system manages to violate fundamental capitalist principles as outlined in the extensive writings of Adam Smith - the father of capitalism. Comparing Smith's vision to the current United States tax system reveals many important inconsistencies, particularly the current penchant for simultaneously taxing wages while exempting (or delaying) taxes on wealth and wealth appreciation. The article proposes more closely aligning the U.S. tax system with Smith's capitalist vision by introducing a combined wealth and consumption tax each with significant exemption amounts. The expected result of a combined wealth and consumption tax system is the release of a considerable portion of the population from tax liability. Less expected rewards of a tax system that more closely resembles Smith's capitalist ideal include: (a) support for a living wage; (b) class based affirmative action; and, (c) reparations for slavery.

Public Choice and the Extent of the Market

SUMMARYIn analyzing political processes, public choice scholars invoke a two‐level choice, choices within rules and constitutional choices among sets of rules. This paper considers rules that set the limits for market choice through the political‐collective action. Three familiar categories of institutional constraints are examined: prohibition, regulation, and taxation‐public spending, that are significant in limiting the trading process. The motivation for institutional‐constitutional construction may originate from sources other than economic objectives. We note that institutional parameters include political and legal constraints, as supplemented by traditions and conventions which may affect choice behavior. We relate the analysis to Adam Smith's vision of the achievement of natural liberty and economic progress through his theorem that economic productivity depends on market size.

Adam Smith in Beijing: Lineages of the Twenty-First Century

In the late eighteenth century, the political economist Adam Smith predicted an eventual equalization of power between the conquering West and the conquered non-West. Demonstrating Smith's continued relevance to understanding China's extraordinary rise, Arrighi examines the events that have brought it about, and the increasing dependence of US wealth and power on Chinese imports and purchases of US Treasury bonds. He traces how the recent US attempt to bring into existence the first truly global empire in world history was done in order to counter China's spectacular economic success of the 1990s, and how the US' disastrous failure in Iraq has made China the true winner of the US War on Terror. Smith's vision of a world market society based on greater equality among the world's civilizations is now more likely than at any time since The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776. In the 21st century, China may well become again the kind of non-capitalist market economy that Smith described, under totally different domestic and world-historical conditions.

“DIVINE ETHNIES” AND “SACRED NATIONS”: ANTHONY D. SMITH AND THE NEO-DURKHEMIAN THEORY OF NATIONALISM

This article is an analysis of the epistemological foundations of Anthony D. Smith's theory of nationalism. The author argues that Smith's theory can be properly understood only when one engages more directly with the broader sociological worldview that his position is an integral part of—Durkhemianism. Although Smith's vision of the social world goes a step beyond classical Durkhemianism, the historicist, collectivist, and idealist nature of his argument is still chained to the Durkhemian legacy, which prevents it from developing an all-inclusive account of nations and nationalism.

Adam Smith's Lost Legacy

This piece outlines Adam Smith's moral philosophical vision. It traces the central role he ascribed to civic ethics as an antidote to the incentives for rent‐seeking and thus as a key element in the successful development of a constructive, cohesive liberal society. The case is made that standard neoclassical analysis, as represented by the work of Gary Becker, identifies no such antidote and thus cannot model the constructive liberal case. The best modern work on the issue is that of Amartya Sen and of James Buchanan. Sen's work and its relation to Smith's vision are examined.

Sima Qian and Adam Smith

In the (Pacific Economic Review 1, 137–45), Leslie Young argued that Sima Qian anticipated Adam Smith's famous concept of the “invisible hand.” While this point is beyond dispute, Young makes the additional claim that Smith’s conception of the natural order was probably “imported from China.” This paper demonstrates that Smith's vision of the natural order was not imported from China.

KEEPING FAITH IN THE FREE TRADE SYSTEM

Adam Smith's vision regarding the invisible hand of the market economy has far‐reaching and new meaning in the age of globalization than ever imagined. The free movement of monetary and intellectual capital, and the relative improvement in the movement of labor across the globe, accentuate the importance of economic activities relative to national political border lines. Likewise, economic activities across the globe and the free market system, rather than the nation‐state, have a stronger role in boosting wealth and jobs even in places that are not strictly limited to national borders. Consequently, the fruits of free trade become available for people in areas that until recently were considered outside the world market.

Joseph Smith's 1823 vision: Uncovering the angel message

J oseph Smith, Jr claimed to have seen an angel in the autumn of 1823, and to have learned from that angel of the Book of Mormon. He further claimed that the da y after his vision he found the Book of Mormon plates. An analysis of Smith's vision narratives-the earliest of which dates to 1832-shows that such claims were anachronistic. Smith could not have found the plates that year. Possibly Smith invented the vision in order to gain status in his family; more probably, however, there was a vision (hallucination) which Smith interpreted differently as time passed and he saw its significance for his career as prophet and ' translator'.