Do you think if Adam Smith wrote to day he would be consider

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-ed a radical? Or Bastiat or Locke? Just imagine one of them writing some of their stuff today. lol. Chuck Schumer would probably call for Bastiat's head. Or imagine if Smith were to show up at CPAC. I would imagine that would go over very well . I just think it is funny for instance that people are all googoo about capitalism, yet if they read Adam Smith's manifesto (Wealth of Nations) , they would probably denounce it tomorrow. I just think people worship in name the very thing they hate. Do you thing most conservatives would call for open trade or open borders? (Not very likely Spock) Or do you think that most people would really want to implement spending cuts in order to have a more vibrant free market? Or cut subsidies? Just a thought.

Most conservatives would hate him. He invented the idea of a progressive income tax, for example. He would immediately call for the breakup of the large corporations, industry associations, etc, since he did not believe any trade or industry should be able to organize together. He wouldn't even like the Yellow Pages for this reason, since they might be able to find each other. Never mind the internet.

Obviously he would be way out of date, too. There's no telling how he would react to the changes that have happened since his time, but given his tone I think it's safe to say he would be a critic of most of the people who worship him.

<quote>The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.</quote>

Not to get into a mud fight, but it sound like more proportional tax. In other words, you should pay for however much you get in services.

He's saying the more you make, the more you have benefitted from the state, so the more you should pay. It's not measured by services delivered to individuals because global benefits are being accounted for here, not just individual ones. It's measured by income (in "proportion to the revenue they respectively enjoy")

You might agree or disagree with the notion, but that is the notion he held.

So what you mean is the more government service you use, the more you should pay? Or are you saying your success is because of government, thus you owe them?

It's hard to say, as how do you do this redating of a person's ideas? I mean, it wouldn't matter whether it is Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, or anybody else. Do you track their place relative to the common ideology, or do you track their ideas and where those ideas fit in the current framework? It's hard to say, as either way involves a massive recreative effort.

I mean, it's plausible to put him in the center, or even possibly ANYWHERE as there are disputes on whether his writings entail certain policy positions or not(my copy in in the preface mentioned a dispute on whether Smith really favored minimum wage laws or not). But the reason why he's the hero of the economic policy right is because he was a founder of one of their central ideas, not necessarily a matter of what he specifically believed necessarily. I mean, Thomas Jefferson is often seen as a hero to the libertarians, but a lot of them favor the financial system he hated and fail to identify with his beloved farmers, and also belong to the religion he hated. It's all a mess.

Last edited by Awesomelyglorious on 04 Jul 2012, 12:43 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Also, edgewaters, your claim is not universally accepted, but rather it is contested. Here is David Friedman considering it a misrepresentation in reference to your passage.
http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2011 ... smith.html

Rationalizing the contradiction, you mean.

Taxes were already flat. Smith was making an argument that they should be proportionately greater for the rich because they benefitted more from the state. Under a flat tax, they are not proportionately greater. The proportion of revenue paid in taxes is exactly the same, that's the whole point of a flat tax.




We're talking about Smith, not me. He never talked about "services" in reference to how much tax you should pay. He talked about how much revenue you have, and stated that you do owe your success to "the protections of the state."

Agree with your bigger point: the Smith wouldnve hated monopolies, lobbiests, and anykind horizontal integration of business. His theories were all based on businesses competeing but not having one company being so powerful that it could effect a whole market (or pressure governent.).


But he wouldve LOVED the Yellow Pages, and he would have fanatacally worshiped the internet because his theories were all based upon the existence of a mythical consumer who had infinite abitlties to choose from an infinite number competing suppliers of goods and services- a mythical consumer that didnt exist in his time- and doesnt even exist today. But the internet has brought reality dramatically closer to the Smithian ideal of a consumer with infinite access to both knowledge of porviders and infinite access to providers.

Of course Smith would be considered a radical. If one reads Wealth of Nations fully, one finds Smith fears "businessmen" more than he praises their ingenuity. The right would smear him as a Marxist.

Smith would be considered to be a moderate progressive today. His views were really inoffensive, largely.

He didn't cite taxation as a "social leveling" device, but he rationalized that, since the wealthy are obviously benefiting the most from the state, they ought to pay more. Furthermore, because they have the most to lose if the state were to fail in its duty, they have a greater need for it: for example, if a foreign power were to come marching across our land, destroying everything and bringing industry to grinding halt, a poor person could simply get up and leave without losing much of anything simply out of not having much in the first place, but a rich person would be at risk of losing a great deal. I think that Smith's rationale for the progressive tax is greatly superior to the conventional leftist concept that is tied mainly to deconstructionist thinking.

Anyway, most people don't realize how much background there was to Smith's ideas. If you would open up your copy of Wealth of Nations, you would find that there are numerous references throughout the book. These citations constitute only a relative handful of the many sources that Smith investigated, throughout his career, in forming the basic principles of his Magnum Opus. A reading of W/N is incomplete without investigating the source material cited therein.

I think I get the idea. So basically (at least at the time) Mercantilism was the rule of the day, and since it put the cost on the average joe, he supported higher taxes on them. So in a sense, it could be comparable to the idea of pay as you use, but using taxes instead (pay as you use is kind of libertarian, so I could see the whole idea). But I guess what I was wondering is if it was more re distributive, or more stopping the redistribution. Although I don't like the idea of using taxes , I think he was right on in regards of businessmen paying back what they took (be it subsidies, infrastructure, and such), and since that was the easiest way at the time to pay for things, it was understandable.

Smith is the guy who thought that the market serves as "an invisible hand." IMO, that kind of reification was dangerous metaphysical silliness. Still, at least he wasn't a libertarian.

"Invisible Hand" is a metaphor for some of the negative feedback control processes taking place in the economic system. Supply and demand are analogous to the feedback control performed by a furnace-thermostat control system or the centrifugal governor on a steam engine.

One must always be cautious about taking analogies and metaphors too literally.

ruveyn

It is a metaphor using personification - like when Mitt Romney has referred to corporations as "people." That kind of reification is, IMO, dangerous.

I agree completely. The personification of a business firm is absurd and leads to potentially harmful policies. I have no problem with various protocols to limit civil liabilities of business firms but I am dead set against regarding firms as persons with the rights of persons.

ruveyn