Dynamic gravitation and structural dynamics: From Smith to Modern theory.

• This paper explores the Newtonian roots of Adam Smith's thinking as a contribution to explaining the structural dynamics of the economic system. • Smith proposes an explanation of "social physics", where the intentionality of actors is the main distinction from Newton's natural dynamics. • In Smith's account, the sources of structural economic dynamics lie in the actors' capacity to organise production within the market. • This conceptual framework highlights a possible avenue along which to investigate Pasinetti's separation theorem. • The literature on industrial policy has moved in the last twenty years towards Pasinetti's insights, to which explicitly reference should be made. This paper explores the Newtonian roots of Adam Smith's thinking in the structural dynamics of the production system and of social organization at large. Newton's Principia Mathematica inspired a philosophical movement in Scotland that looked for principles that could explain the dynamics of social and economic bodies with the same scientific rigour. In Smith's account, the sources of structural economic dynamics lie in the actors' capacity to organise production within that domain of interaction of competing forces that he defines as the market. Against this background, Smith analyses the role of the institutional setup. This conceptual framework is central to the theory of structural dynamics in classical political economy. It highlights a possible avenue along which to investigate Pasinetti's distinction between the 'natural' (production-based) and the 'institutional' levels of analysis (Pasinetti's separation theorem) by exploring the dynamic interdependence of technological and institutional drives in the emerging new industrial revolution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]