Courtesy of a UK reader comes word that Adam Smith will adorn the new £20
banknote to be issued by the Bank of England next spring. In The
Guardian‘s coverage, the headline is "Adam Smith becomes first Scot to
adorn an English banknote."
The £20 note is the most widely circulated of all denominations, with
approximately 1.2-billion copies issued. Aside from the portrait
of Adam Smith there will appear "an engraving showing the division of labour
in pin manufacturing with the words “and the great increase in the quantity
of work that results”."
Perhaps predictably, there has been some genial sparring between left and
right over who has the better claim to his legacy: The left pointing
largely to The Theory of Moral Sentiments and its theme of the
universality of human sympathy for others, while the right points to the "invisible
hand" guided by the self-interest of each, with a minimum of governmental or
societal interference, to produce the economically optimal results. Mervyn
King, governor of the Bank of England, offered a nicely inclusive statement:
“Social institutions and market economies go hand-in-hand,” said Mr King. “Second, people who, for the most part, pursue their own self-interest, are also prepared to stand back and ask how their actions should be constrained by social institutions. Such institutions arise because we build them.”
I see a trip to the UK in my future to procure one of these, suitable for framing.
