Positive Wirtschaftsanalyse oder normativer Wirtschaftsentwurf?

Abstract

Abstract Many people consider Adam Smith the first economist to describe the functioning of capitalism. In fact, Smith must be considered less the discoverer of capitalism, but rather as its inventor. The economic laws Smith formulated are institutionally bound to the commercial society, to use the corresponding phrase of Smith, which at that time – at least in its liberal version – has not yet be materialized. In this sense, it represents a utopia of economic policy that still had to be realized. Smith’s comments on commercial society should therefore be understood less as a positive economic analysis than as a normative economic draft.