The University of Sydney- June 2023

The University of Sydney held a public lecture by Emeritus Professor Tony Aspromourgos, that examined Adam Smith in the context of his role as one of the great founding figures of the modern social sciences.

The 16th of June 2023 marked the tercentenary of the known birthdate of Adam Smith. 300 years on a crowd gathered at the University of Sydney Social Sciences Building for a public lecture by Emeritus Professor of Economics, Tony Aspromourgos.

It is important to mark the tercentenary for two reasons. One, the founding of economic science, as Smith is often characterized as the founder of economics, or political economy, as it was then called. Secondly, Smith was a key figure in the intellectual history of liberalism. Connecting the dimension of social science and politics can lead to distortions and parodies of the man and his thought. Against this, Professor Tony Aspromourgos aims to recover the genuine voice and thought of the historical Adam Smith.

About the speaker 

Tony Aspromourgos is an Emeritus Professor of Economics in the University of Sydney, having taught Economics at the University 1985–2021, and a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. He has published extensively in international economic journals including the Cambridge Journal of Economics, History of Political Economy, Journal of the History of Economic Thought and Review of Political Economy.
 
Professor Aspromourgos is also the author of The Science of Wealth: Adam Smith and the Framing of Political Economy (Routledge, 2009) and ‘Invisible Hand’, The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics (2020). He is a Member of the Editorial Boards of the European Journal of the History of Economic Thought and Journal of the History of Economic Thought.

Group standing together with Graham White, Craig Emerson, Peter Docherty and MS. Source: University of Sydney

 

Tong Aspromourgos standing speaking to a lecture theatre filled with people. Source: University of Sydney

 

A group standing together with Tony Aspromourgos, Graham White, GB, Mark M Laidlaw, Deda, Abonnizio with a group of honours student Source: University of Sydney