Now really.
We persue only our own interest then it magically helps everyone?
I don’t think this guy was a real economist.
He was an opinionated fellow.
That is as far as he got.
K: well, he did give us the “invisible hand of god” to magically
help us…
fun fact: Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx were in favor of progressive taxes on
the population… the wealthier one is, the more taxes they pay…
How about them apples…
Kropotkin
That’s like saying thieves make us richer.
He was a sociologist before such a title was known - a philosopher of social development.
Adam Smith developed an understanding of how a primitive situation of a unruly land can develop into a far more orderly nation (specifically the USA). He apparently felt that properly organized capitalism would be a height of constructive, socialized liberty. Karl Marx proposed that the same process should be evolved further into socialism then communism.
The difference between them seems to be that Adam Smith felt that capitalism (properly run) was the height and Karl Marx felt that communism (properly run) was the height. Smith served in the Seattle Washington judiciary - now run by Marxists.
I don’t think capitalism has anything to do with theft. Communism does (just watch the CCP).
That he believed in taxes at all might offend some on the right, but I think a case can be made that he did not believe in progressive taxation but rather proportional taxation…
This could easily be a flat tax. The rich pay more because the percentage rate ends up being more money since they have more taxable income. A progressive tax taxes them at a higher percentage.
Edit: I’ve now look at more sources and I get a mass of opposed positions on whether Smith believed in progressive or proportional taxation. So, I don’t know.
What if Marx and Adam were both wrong?
So far communism has led to unbelievable oppression, despite Marx having some insights into the problems of other economic systems. There is something fundamentally anti-life here with this C.
So far capitalism has been successful only on the back of incredibly abusive behavior at the very least in foreign countries. IOW corporate resource grabbing, support for dictatorships, undermining of democracy, rape of culture and workers, destruction of social services and economies via IMF and other organizations for the benefit of corporations, and war lobbying and channeling of public funds and policies towards private interests. IOW the independence of corporations is in question and the possibility of not being a vampiritic system is also in question. And that’s vampirism not even raising domestic vampirism and the domestic elimination of democracy.
I think C vs. C is a false dilemma and each side benefits from people thinking binarily about the issue. More of less like the hallucination that the Republicans and Dems are actually the full range of choices or even that they are distinct parties at all. There is something fundamentally ‘giving over power to addicts’ here with this C.
To me, money is nothing if it is not valued.
If gold has no value, nobody fights for it.
The economy is a form of thought, a series of emotions.
The economy is a reflection of what people value.
Belief in capital makes it somewhat real.
Big enough belief can make anything seem real and solid.
It seems to me that Smith was about how to create economic liberty through personal incentive and Marx was about how to take it away again.
A man is inspired to form a business so that he can become more wealthy. In the process, he creates 10,000 jobs. Did he do it by stealing? Usually not. Did he cause other people to become wealthier and more prosperous? Probably so (else they would work somewhere else).
A man loses inspiration to try to become wealthier because of socialist controls and taxes. Does he create any jobs? No. Does anyone get more prosperous? no. Do the socialist leaders become more wealthy? Not from him. Is anyone actually better off? Not a soul.
For anyone to prosper under a socialist system, especially fully communist, people have to be enslaved - forced to work for others in order to survive. Then the socialist leaders can get wealthy. But even then they only get what they can steal from uninspired workers. Society doesn’t advance in prosperity for all except by literally stealing from capitalists.