Thomas Hobbes's Influence on David Hume: The Emergence of a Public Choice Tradition

Finding New Wine in Old Bottles: What Historians Must Do When Leontief Coefficients Are No Longer the Designated Drivers of Economics

“…McCloskey counted up the accountants, lawyers, financial advisers, brokers, bookkeepers, advertising executives, media workers, and so on. What McCloskey neglected to point out is how much of the persuasive activities of these workers is devoted to producing precisely those "institutional facts"-in the form of warranties, letters of credit, negotiable instruments, warehouse receipts, wills, and other authenticating documents and security-enhancing representations-that allow economic activity to flourish in a world of decentralized information, globalized marketing and business organization, and pervasive distrust (Moss 1995).…”

“…creating an abstract model of the state of nature and committing himself to a version of methodological individualism, Hobbes pioneered a manner of reasoning about social order that is quite familiar to modern theorists (Moss 1977).…”

A Note on Paradoxes in Economics

“…Hobbes' premises were not too different from Mandeville's and Smith's. His state of nature is exclusively populated by independent individuals who pursue their interest in a rational way and are free from any external coercion (Moss 1991). The outcome of their interaction, however, is just the opposite of the one described by the theorists of the invisible hand.…”

“…Today, interpretations of Hobbes' works in terms of game theory, and in particular as a forerunner of the prisoners' dilemma, can be counted in hundreds. Gauthier (1969), Ullmann-Margalit (1977) and Taylor (1987) are classics in this literature, while Hampton (1986), Kavka (1986), Magri (1994) and Moss (1991) provide more historically oriented treatments.…”

Indirect utility, justice, and equality in the political thought of David Hume

“…7. The importance of group size for Hume's political thought is emphasized in Michael Taylor (1976) and Lawrence S. Moss (1991). 8.…”