Analyzing Adam
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Adam Smith (no relation) was a clever Scotsman, a constantly recurring phrase.
One book worth reading is P.J. O’Rourke’s review of Smith’s Wealth of Nations. O’Rourke read the entire multi-volume set so “you wouldn’t have to,” for which I owe P.J. an eternal debt. I suspect ingesting a few thousand pages of 18th century Scottish text on moral, economic and political theory is closest one can come to a lobotomy without the aid of surgical instruments or Jägermeister.
Most interesting is exactly how little has changed since Adam Smith opined. Certain elements of man, government and the irreconcilable differences between them remain. Select passages from Wealth of Nations and the companion Moral Sentiments explain any number of 21st century catastrophes.
Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and subprime mortgages: “the man who borrows in order to spend will soon be ruined, and he who lends to him will generally have occasion to repent of his folly.”
Exporting jobs to China: “It was, not the wisdom and policy, but the disorder and injustice of the European governments, which peopled and cultivated America.”
Correcting public employee unions: “the persons who have the administration of government [are] generally disposed to reward both themselves and their immediate dependents rather more than enough … The emoluments of officers, therefore, can in most cases very well bear to be taxed” (in other words, place a surcharge on salaries and pension plans to recoup cash)
Poli-sci 101 and socialism: “It is unjust that the whole society should contribute towards an expense of which the benefit is confined to a part of the society.”
Healthcare reform legislation: “In the progress of despotism the authority of the executive power gradually absorbs that of every other power in the state, and assumes to itself the management of every branch of revenue.”
Obama: “They have little modesty; are often assuming, arrogant, and presumptuous; great admirers of themselves, and great contemner of other people … Their excessive presumption, founded upon their own excessive self-admiration, dazzles the multitude … The frequent, and often wonderful, success of the most ignorant quacks and imposters … sufficiently demonstrate how easily the multitude are imposed upon by the most extravagant and groundless pretensions.”
Perhaps Wealth of Nations should be required reading in public school, but I fear the leap from Lady Gaga to Adam Smith is too broad, though by the former a lobotomy has already been performed on America’s youth.
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