The reader might reflect that an awful lot of supposing has to take place in order for the quantity theory of money to be true.

But Adam Smith was a philosopher as well as well as an economist, famous in his time as much for his Theory of Moral Sentiments as for The Wealth of Nations. And as he understood so well, society is more than the sum of its individual parts.

The temptation to use mathematics is irresistible for economists. It appears to convey the appropriate air of scientific authority and precision to economists' musings.

By any reasonable criteria, the discipline of economics as a whole, in its present state, is sadly lacking.

The reader might reflect that an awful lot of supposing has to take place in order for the quantity theory of money to be true.

In most Western economies, the general relationship is not in fact between the rate of inflation and the level of unemployment, but between the rate of change of inflation and the rate of change of unemployment.

Once the true relationship between inflation and unemployment is understood, with luck and skill, a free lunch is possible.