The Real Adam Smith

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 9:03 PM UTC

yesenadam wrote: post #88

CryptoPunk wrote: post #81

This is disingenuous in a number of places. For example, it quotes the passage in the Wealth of Nations warning of collusion between merchants: >>As he put it in The Wealth of Nations: ‘People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.’ It uses this as a data point to support the content…

How on earth do you read that as endorsing unregulated markets in the face of state interference?

Post by ScottBurson » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 9:32 PM UTC

primroot wrote: post #57

nwah1 wrote: post #43

I'm surprised it didn't mention an obvious difference from modern conceptions of the free market: he thought landownership was a monopoly privilege that could be taxed without harm, so long as you are taxing only the land rent itself, not the improvements. "Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altog…

Smith does not seem to be a private-propery-idealist as almost anyone in the mainstream today. Take this passage for example, also from book V. "Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driv…

Post by saosebastiao » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 9:42 PM UTC

conanbatt wrote: post #80

nwah1 wrote: post #43

I'm surprised it didn't mention an obvious difference from modern conceptions of the free market: he thought landownership was a monopoly privilege that could be taxed without harm, so long as you are taxing only the land rent itself, not the improvements. "Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altog…

Taxes on land have been popular forever. Adam smith talked about it, then Ricardo formalized why rent is what it is, to which Marx barely made an addition and Henry George made an economic and moral argument for Land Value Tax in California. That was over 100 years ago. Today, Krugman, Stiglitz and Milton Friedman agree on land value taxes. The economic consensus on this topic was achieved long ago. Its a political i…

Post by namarie » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:02 PM UTC

upofadown wrote: post #11

It is really hard for even professional historians to gain a good understanding of old technical works. There is just too much unavailable context. In the end, you get to ascribe whatever motivations you want by picking and choosing your quotes. So if Neoliberals want to use The Wealth of Nations as some sort of theological text, then more power to them. They just can't use it as some sort of appeal to authority as t…

Post by RMGgondella » Thu, Jan 18, 2018, 10:27 PM UTC

yedava wrote: post #40

RobertoG wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All that is very nice in theory, but who is doing the "cut down"? By definition it has to be some entity more powerful that the entity that is cut down. And who should control that entity but the majority of the society? So, we finish with the (very imperfect) solution of a democratic government. We should recognize that it's going to be a lot of interest trying to corrupt it and we (the people) have to keep watching…

I agree it has to be a democracy. The right points to harms of government overreach to argue for less government. The left points to exploding inequality and argues for more government in order to tackle it. A good faith assumption could be that both are trying to decentralize power and maybe putting it that way will make it easier to reach across the ideological divide.