The Invisible hand... and other musings on The Wealth of Nations

[nadinbrzezinski]

Yes we have heard of it, and it is part of modern MARKET FUNDAMENTALISM. Yet here is what a lot of people do not realize. It came with caveats. So here are some of the important ones.

It works... as long as there is morals in the market place, that includes enforceable contracts and regulations.

It also works as long as there is no fraud involved.

It is not, as Hayek and other FUNDAMENTALIST like to say... only about buyer beware.

Yes, SMITH was all for a well regulated market place that also included a MINIMUM WAKE... in fact you could make an argument that he was all for... and this is revolutionary... a LIVING WAGE (chapter ten)

So when you see people going, but, but capitalism... what we have today it ain't... and if we are to return to a system that works for all of us it needs to be tightly regulated... and we need a LIVING WAGE so the work force can keep that economy going. This is also present in Das Kapital, so when you actually dig into both books, you realize it is a debate on the nature of an unregulated system and how it is damaging to workers, whether you chose to call it proletariat, or workers...

Our globalized system is actually closer to what Smith was critical off, a fundamental, monopoly driven, mercantilist economy... and for those going but MARXIST could never work... they agree in so many things... but they are bookends to the Political Economy of the 18th and 19th centuries.

[booley]

1. Communism and Libertarianism

Ironically I think they both ultimately have the same problem despite claiming to be be ideological opposites.

Both only work for the people over all as long as every things equal.

But everything of course is not equal.

Eventually both lead to a small number of super powerful controlling everything and the rest of us begging for crumbs.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. Ironically what Marx described is not what developed in Russia

nor is what we have today in the US what Smith described

[white_wolf]

3. According to Marx, it shouldn't have happened in Russia.

I think he predicted it would happen in Germany. No one thought it could happen in Russia as it wasn't developed enough. You can't skip an entire phase of economic development. Capitalism is required to industrialize the economy.

[Curmudgeoness]

4. How many people do you think have actually read Adam Smith

or Marx or any other philosophies on economics? This is like the Bible, everyone throws bits and pieces that they have heard somewhere and act like that covers it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

7. I know, people cite the holy writ, but never actually read it

:hi:

[Hydra]

5. The problem is that regulation in Capitalism is basically impossible

"Capital cannot abide by a limit." No one playing by Capitalism's rules is looking for a level playing field. They're looking for advantages, and the best advantages lie in owning the Gov't.

Reboot it however many times you'd like. We still reach the point where everything gets looted and lots of people die along the way.

[panzerfaust]

6. Adam was also likely the source of the Townshend Acts

Which, from a British perspective, did not turn out as anticipated.

It has been decades since I read Wealth - which is primarily a destruction of mercantilism (which the Townshend Acts epitomized) - but I do recall that he recognized, and seemed to find unjust, the very different powers of the Capitalists (Masters) and the workers as exemplified by this quote ...

"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate...Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people" In contrast, when workers combine, "the masters..never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_of_nations

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Absolutely and today's system

has far more in common with mercantilism than people really should be comfortable with