It is virtually impossible to be involved with one without being involved with the other. Economics defines who gets what in the World and politicians use that as the basis for their rule. How do you make a difference between Politics and Economics in something like Brexit? Is it purely one or the other? Or is there some ulterior motive to use politics to the economic ends of the right wingers?
I never studied Economics at University. The only society I can think of worse than the one in which we live, designed largely by economists would be one designed by engineers and scientists. There is positive and normative economics as well as Micro and Macroeconomics. When economists in academia are writing scholarly research papers, it is mostly positive, based on facts and data with conclusions drawn from that.
When people are armchair philosophers it is normative. At the core, economics is positive and has a micro foundation. Macro, are broader sweeps of the brush and are connected to policy.
I would have to back peddle a bit and say, yes economics is can be connected to politics in if you take it in the form of policy analysis. However, the core of economic academic research needs to be based on objective data as even though it is a social science it is still a science. From the evidence, policymakers can draw their own conclusions. However, what I find annoying, for lack of a better word is when people turn objective thinking into a political ideology and broadcast messages of this ideology to justify a political action for a society without carefully considering the data and effect for the whole in the short and long run.
Economist becomes puppets of policy makers rather than objective investigators of the truth. China prior to was a piggery of the world. Workers slept in factories in their own excrements, there were over a million drug addicts and a subsistence economy where the upper classes dominated and exploited the masses.
Competition never is because in Capitalism there are winners and losers and free will does not guide our actions but nurture. Everything we do as humans is determined by our economic needs. China did not have capitalism before It was ruled by warlords, dynasties, and tribes, as well as de facto foreign powers who practiced mercantilism. It did not have the rule of law and educational opportunities Adam Smith envisioned.
It was an economically primitive feudal waring society. You can not compare the living standard of Formosa to mainland China or Hong Kong. China recently transformed into wealth from free markets. Free markets are not a religion and do not answer the deep meaning of life questions, but they tend to raise the standard of living of counties that have them within the context of a just system of rule. Thank you very much for putting Adam Smith online. I have been looking for the 5th edition.
Can you confirm which edition this version is? I do not have that information. I believe the second edition to be the most radical in changes from the first, while the fourth and fifth editions were more small corrections. I think the fifth edition Smith might even mention this. Let me know what you find out. Thanks for your time and effort in doing this for others without receiving anything in return.
Mark where I can get others classical economist books? You are welcome. If you are looking for unformatted books Gutenberg project or the library has a lot online for download. If you have a specific request I can create a new one. I do recommend anything by Knut Wicksell on money and interest rate theory. Although not a classical economist like Adam Smith, Wicksell was someone who understood the importance of the monetary sector and its effect on the real sector.
Why the observed bank rate of interest does not always stimulate the economy like social engineers hope. How you answer the question: To what extent was Smith a radical? In what category would you say: political, social, intellectual,etc?
The answer is simple. Although A. Smith was not the first person in the universe to think of the idea that markets left alone work for the individual and a nation, he certainly gave robustness to the theory. While countries like Spain and France and even today believe that the way to riches for an economy is to support the national industry with mercantilist policies, Smith had another idea.
The idea is basically that humans are good. When left to act on their own enlightened self interest they will bring society as a whole to a higher level then any king or economist could ever do. That is radical. The peasant knows more than the economist or the king about economics. The farmer knows what it takes to feed his family, bring the goods to market and sell it better than any advisers for the king or the president. Thank you very much for making the complete and unabridged version of this book available.
I had the hardest time deciding which version of the Wealth of Nation to purchase on Amazon and Half. If this is considered a top book for Warren, it must be good for a lot of people who are interested in the economy.
I will start reading this book in the next week or so and leave a comment as I journey through this classic. My lecturer and mentor recommended this book as a must read, after 5 years of graduation, I finally got a copy to read.
Economics is indeed incomplete without issues put forth in this book. How a nation or an individual for that matter achieves wealth and economic prosperity in the world. This wonderful and inspiring book should be required reading for all politicians. Can you give me the reference book, chapter, paragraph for where it comes from? I am not aware that Adam Smith said that. Adam Smith on money discusses how it is a cipher and rather not something of real value but a medium of exchange that people agree on.
That perhaps could be interpreted all money is belief. Money in itself does not have any intrinsic value unless you have a psychological distortion. It is only the belief that we can do something with money that makes it desirable.
Let me know what you think that quote means and I can give you my perspective. Hello Mark, Thanks for your reply. I wonder if his slant on things sent Western economics on a particular course. The wealth of nation is the best of the economic books, both modern writers and journalists who believe themselves to be economists can not compare to this classic.
Good work. Well done. Thank you for the effort, and the good intent. From an appreciative MBA student. I feel he is the most intelligent philosopher I have ever read. He is downright prophetic. Because It implies that all conservatives are right, and all liberals are wrong. In reality Adam Smith provides rebuttals against dumb people. The Wealth of Nations is consistent with, and informs my very liberal views.
I worry that your statement on rebutting liberals will give liberals the erroneous impression that this book is conservative garbage and they will not read the book. Liberals should read this book. Both his book The wealth of Nations and the Theory of Moral Sentiments have insights for economics and as well as life and how to live a good life personally. Therefore, I stand corrected. His books are not to rebut liberals. In fact, it could be argued he was liberal by todays standards on various issues, as he was a advocate of education programs for example.
Some of the bread and butter conservative views I disagree with. Further, from another perspective the views of the liberal and conservatives today are not as far apart if you put them next to ideologies of the past. Liberals are not unintelligent at all, nor are conservatives. There are brilliant minds from both side.
I teach college economics and I can see both view points, and it is my job in the class to respect both views and teach the raw theory.
There is positive economics and normative economics. Since economics is a social science there is a lot of room for both the liberals and conservatives enjoy Adam Smith because the truth is, although he a minimalist when it came to intervention in the market, he was also a humanist and if Adam Smith were alive today, I can not say definitively which party if any he would have aligned with.
His earlier book , though you may more commonly find the edition is also important reading for a full picture, Theory of Moral Sentiments. One should not blindly read Adam Smith.
Engage your brain. A lot has changed since then. The world is bigger, faster, more complex. And guess what — money is different now, but we still measure the wealth of nations first and foremost — in money.
So think about what other things are of value to you, besides your labor. And how they fit into the economy. LTV points the way. Measure what you care about. We still need that insight. Now more than ever, really. With the rise of automation, the rise of vast concentrations of wealth, we are going to have some massive shifts in our future. Understanding what really matters, and the forces arrayed around us, is more critical than ever.
It is interesting to me that you say it will give you a clear rebuttal to any liberal. Smith is associated with classical liberalism. Our political identities have gotten very confused. People who seek to deny a role for government in protecting us from the worst impulses of the merchant class.
For example, expecting it to solve your problem in the context of a market that is anything BUT free. Libertarians, especially. Or missing the importance of the distributed, localized decision making that it represents. The Theory of Moral Sentiments I intend to add. It is a book that puts Adam Smith enlightenment thinking into perspective. Even if it is different from Wealth of Nations in terms of topic they are interrelated because Smith was trying to mix economics with the philosophy of morals and happiness.
Thank you so much I have always wanted to get my hands on this book looking at the bit knowledge Adam smith wrote that fascinated me as I studied economics and now I can see fully and from a classical perspective.
Thanks I can not wait for more classics. Dear Mark, thanks a lot for providing such and excellent resource. I am a Mexican student in a postgraduate course on History of Economic Thought, I already have a book translated to Spanish but I am sure that it will be very helpful to read Smith on the original language.
Best Regards all the way from Mexico. All you have to do is get your virus-free comrades together, sell your possessions and share the proceeds communally. With all due respect, Mark Capitalism is not winning the war against this virus its command economy. Just imagine the chaos if the government said let the market decide who lives and who dies. The central planner is not saying that.
I am just amazed at the ignorance on this website. Adam Smith my a, the socialists are fixing the mess you are selling on this blog. The Virus was created in a socialist country.
Vaccines and medical innovations are usually created in Free-market countries. Did he really? That was the code word for they were purged. I question if the numbers coming out of China are accurate. I know communist governments have never ever falsified aggregate data and statistics five-year plans and all.
Look at the freedom index. Would you rather live in the countries at the bottom like North Korea and Vensualia or at the top like Ireland and the US? Also when you are looking at statistics you have to look at the reasons behind the numbers. Are the demographics in a particular country older or younger? Is that the reason for the different rates of contraction and mortality? Stay objective and do not take one situation and make a blanket statement. Rather think about economic theory and how it relates to a situation.
Generally in a free market, more minds are engaged in a self-actualized way to help humanity. Mark what political ideology rescued US from the Great Depression. The government run plans did it not the freehand and the goodness of the entrepreneur.
Why is it that you always equate democratic socialism with Stalinist dictatorship? What we had is state capitalism and China today is the best example of that. Within three hundred years the number of indigenous people was reduced from 70 million to under one million.
Capitalism leads to extremes of subservience. What do you think the bill should be that former colonial countries should present to the West? If you have travelled in Europe, you must have marveled took pictures of palaces and public buildings, but did you ever ask yourself who financed this? Do I need to provide an answer for this? Why are there fifty million poor people in America?
Why are there 2,3 million Americans in Jail? Why is it that USA spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined? Why are there 40, death and thousands of injuries by guns in US?
Why is it that for the past 70 years USA has been at war every year? The reason is Capitalism. And when you begin to ask these questions, you are raising questions about the economic system, about a broader distribution of wealth. In your comment you attribute the virus to China. We have hundreds of viruses annually, some relatively mild and some deadly like the present one. In the past outbreaks it was the socialist countries that sent doctors to Africa.
Recently Russia sent truckloads of medical supplies to Italy as well a over a hundred virologists and soldiers to help the Italian government, Cuba has sent thousands of doctors to front lines in Africa and South America and continues to do so.
China similarly is sending equipment and doctors to Europe and the Middle East. On the social index Cuba is number 4 in the Americas and they did not rob anyone. America wants to return it to be the whorehouse of the Western World that it was under Batista and his henchmen who found a home in America just like thousands of Nazis from Europe found a home in America, Canada, Brazil, Argentina and Central America. Adam Smith has brought to America moral violence, motion pictures full of pornography, crime, and horror.
This corrosion of evil is part of the free hand and considerably more of it than in the pauper and lawless former Soviet society. In a society where criminals get elected, billions are spent in a pretense democratic vote, a vote if it changed anything would be outlawed. Journalism where lies are accepted as truth leading the population like lemmings over the cliffs. FDR and the New Deal right? Anyone who studied economics knows that is not true. The recovery happened in the s.
That was a recovery? The government has an idea. That financial blogger is not going to build a bridge. He is out of work for a reason. It draws recourses away from the productive private sector labor pool. Mark Capitalism needs war. WWII took millions of Americans out of the productive labour pool and put them into redundant production of war goods.
If that had not happened USA would have had her revolution. The success of the recovery program created working conditions that corporations did not like and that was followed by the second Red Scare McCarthyism.. Unions were destroyed and robbery and war continue. She also said why produce weapons if you are not going to use them. This is a war criminal protected by a corrupt government protecting Capitalism for exploitation of the many by the few.
War and Capitalism are opposed. War comes from the state and politicians, not from shop keepers and family homesteaders. Look at Northern Ireland.
When trade opened up people stopped fighting. Or Vietnam, we trade instead of fighting them. Hard to dislike someone if they are providing your sustenance. I am an unrepentant capitalist but war and military and all that goes with it is a waste of humanity. The industrial-military complex is against all that is free. It is a million times worse than the Hunger Games Area. Not only because it is real but because of the magnitude.
Not to mention what it does to young minds. It brainwashes them often for life. Better is to maximize personal liberties and freedoms and allow us to find ways to help one another. I am very opposed to war. War is against freedom.
To draft someone or tell them they are doing national service, young people, basically children is World peace comes through trade. Look at how Germany and Poland get along or Germany and France. When you have free movement of labor and capital, not need to fight, just move. Mark again with due respect your comment omits facts. Germany is doing well by impoverishing their neighbours.
EU made Germany the America of Europe. When Euro was created the lira and the drachma were not devalued increasing their purchasing power while the Deutschmark was. As a result Germany prospered while the poor sisters stagnated.
Purchasing power of the drachma and lira just two examples went up so the Greeks and Italians bought German goods Germany booms and Greeks and Italians neglected their own development they stagnate now they provide cheap labour and do work Germans refuse to do. Somewhat similar to the American situation now. Consumption of imported goods in US went up at the expense of American industry.
In the Americas Argentina, Venezuela, became targets. Original bricks were too big to attack using the marines so they did the General Fabian approach get them one at a time. The first domino to fall of the big five was Brazil —South Africa is under attack and so is India. China was attacked through trade and Russia through Ukraine. As far as Germany and France as well as Poland getting along maybe you need to look at some other news outlets rather than CNN.
The war drums are beating in Europe as the Right has shown its ugly head in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary, and almost every country in Europe. The Marshall Plan has held Germany back from militarization by integrating its coal and steel production as well as its financial institutions which are held by USA corporations. Inequality is caused by government.
Think of the Federal Reserve and non-neutral money. No I am not jealous because I am in the one percent. What is my point? We need to change the rules, the referee and the rule book.
I understand what you are saying. However, every time we police the market we replace the entrepreneur with government, which in my understanding of history is worst.
In , we would have been better to let the banks fall. It is because we have the government we have such inequality. I know it is hard to believe but it relates to the non-neutrality of money. Without regulations the human race would descend into chaos, and starvation. In every crisis we fall back onto command economy to solve the mess created by the free hand. It helps isolate multiple independent variables affecting a dependent variable.
You want more I supply more or you want less I supply less. This is fiction. The price of beef is set by many other factors eg price of other meats, price of grain.
The price of substitutes, inputs and compliments are all factored into the price for beef. Invisible hand assumes that just you and I somehow determine production and consumption of beef.
What are you talking about? The invisible hand is unintended consequence of enlighted self-interest. It is only possible because people are dynamically working together based on self-interest. If our so called adversaries did what we are doing in every corner of the world what do you think our media would write?
You know full well what that would be so I leave that to you to tell me. I would rather live in the US any year than the Union.
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