What is known and understood is often discarded out of convenience. Adam Smith was an economist. Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke are accountants and economists in name only. Adam Smith understood incentives. Ivy League economists are lost on the subject of incentives.
Below are some quotes from Adam Smith that are highly relevant in today’s world.
“Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.”
? Adam Smith
No society can surely be flourishing and happy of which by far the greater part of the numbers are poor and miserable. ”
? Adam Smith
“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.”
? Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry into the Nature & Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Free market economics is a discipline that must be imposed on a society if a land is to be prosperous. The good of free markets cannot be noticed in the present moment but the good is always there. The role of government is to enforce free market discipline and of course government must not be allowed to be used to rig markets.
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