The statement in the title of this question looks trivial, but it took me some days to wrap my head around. There is at least one decisive distinction between an electron (with its spin) and a current-carrying wire loop: A time-dependent external magnetic field can induce an emf in the wire, but it cannot do so with the electron, as there is (surprise!) no wire. At least in this respect, the Ampère model of a dipole (current going round in a tiny circle) seems to be a much poorer choice than the Gilbert model of a dipole (two magnetic monopoles).
This has dramatic consequences, for instance, on how to compute the total energy for collections of electromagnets as opposed to collections of permanent magnets. Jackson et al.'s Classical Electrodynamics hints at this (at least I believe so) around and after Eq. (5.151) on p. 250 in the 2006 German edition.
And now for the questions: Am I right? And is there any textbook or paper that devotes a more in-depth discussion to this topic? I found none so far.
