SMITH AFTER SAMUELSON: CARE AND HARM IN A SOCIALLY ENTANGLED WORLD WORKING DRAFT – DO NOT CITE WITHOUT AUTHOR’S PERMISSION REVISED FEBRUARY 28, 2019 Robert F. Garnett, Jr. Professor and Associate Dean John V. Roach Honors College Texas Christian University The problem of separate spheres In Economics for Humans (2018) and previous work, Julie Nelson urges economists to deconstruct the gendered dualism of commerce and care: the “harsh, depersonalized, masculine” notion of the commercial economy as a clocklike machine and the related notion of care as a separate sphere of “non-monetized family and community relations” (2018, 43-44; see also Nelson 1992). This dualism is often traced to Adam Smith’s treatment of commerce and care in his two classic works, The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (WN) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS): Commerce Care Wealth of Nations Theory of Moral Sentiments self-interest sympathy competition community impersonal personal global local economics ethics/psychology/sociology The “separate spheres” interpretation of Smith’s writings is a legacy of the Chicago School (Viner 1972; Coase 1976; Hayek 1978) but even more the conflation of Smith’s economics with