Working Papers

Dissolving the Water-Diamond Paradox: A Conceptual Semantic Analysis of “Money” and “Value” in the Wealth of Nations

With Gian Marco Farese

We examine the conceptual semantics of two key words in Chapter IV of the Wealth of Nations: money and value (specifically, the exchangeable value of goods). Our semantic investigation of the original conceptualization of these words helps resolve interpretive misconceptions in modern economics and provides deeper insight into Adam Smith’s fundamental principles of economics. Using the Natural Semantic Metalanguage methodology, we offer semantic illustrations that clarify Smith’s treatment of money as the universal instrument of human economic transactions and illuminate the polysemy of value in the so-called “water-diamond paradox”. In doing so, we demonstrate the considerable semantic and conceptual complexity underlying these foundational economic concepts.

Humanomics and Human Action Explanations of Why Human Beings Divide Their Labor

Modern economics, whether in the orthodox tradition of Paul Samuelson or the heterodox tradition of Ludwig von Mises, ultimately looks to explain economic outcomes, that is, the effects of human action. In their own way, neither distinguish the consequences of human action from the origins of human action, and neither have any truck with ethical valuations and moral judgments as part of their modern subjective theory of value. If economics is to be about flesh-and-blood human beings, and why we do what we do, then we need an analytical framework that considers human action in its origin, rather than in just its outcome. Following Adam Smith’s lead, I explain the division of labor with a humanomics account that is moral all the way down.

You Wouldn’t Steal a Car: Moral Intuition for Intellectual Property

With Joy A. Buchanan

We conduct an experiment to compare how people respond to the appropriation of rivalrous versus nonrivalrous goods. Analysis of chat transcripts indicates that people use language associated with “stealing” exclusively for rivalrous goods, even though acts of taking nonrivalrous goods arise more frequently. Moreover, appropriating rivalrous goods precipitates negative emotional shifts in conversations, while appropriating nonrivalrous goods do not. These findings help explain why digital piracy in the internet age provokes moral judgments distinct from those involving physical theft. They suggest that our moral evaluations originate more from the rivalrousness of the good than from the act of taking itself and therefore challenge the applicability of intellectual property law frameworks formulated before the advent of widespread digital sharing.