Adam Smith's ideas

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For those of you who do not know Adam Smith, he was a Scottish Enlightenment thinker, who came up with the ideas of lassaiz-faire or the concept of the goverment staying out of the economy. He also believed that an advanced civilization is bad, he says that with the absence of an advanced cilization, the people would form direct democratic goverments. And so far I think that his arguments hold some weight, because there are still many primitive tribe out there who live in a Utopia of sorts. What are your thoughts?

 

That might work fine in a small tribal society but I would worry that most of the inhabitants of most large 'civilised' countries are too ignorant to form their own effective governments - hence I see our current political systems as a slightly lesser evil.

On the subject of Adam Smith's economic laissez-faire theories - I subscribe to them as applying to most areas of our lives. For example, if you ever complain that something is over-priced, it probably isn't. If it was, then nobody would buy it and the seller would go our of business.

 

If the economy were truly a matter of simple supply and demand, laissez-faire has merit. Unfortunately, the complexity of today's global economy means that there are so many factors contributing to the price of a product that there's no way government can NOT intervene. I'm thinking of local issues like environmental protection and workplace safety; throw trade protection into the mix and you've got a real headache.

Nice try, Mr. Smith, but the world has gone beyond you.

 

Like him quite a bit. Obviously, as mentioned, his theories are outdated at some places, but that's just the way it goes. On the other hand, laisser faire connected with Smith ? I thought that's Hayek's field. I thought the inquiry was mainly directed versus mercantillism and the observation, that empires mainly bleed their homelands poor, like catalonia, which had to carry Charles V empire, and paid with de-population.

In this way, neatly anticipating the sundown of the British Empire in the 1880's through loosing their industrial base through depicting the problems of the powers that were and were at that time foreign to the industral rise of the UK (or maybe too close with the tea-monopoly to finance the black treasury whole the 7-years-war has left).

The weak point of Smith is obviously the retreat to the mystical get-everything-right hidden hand. It isn't a safe bet to wait until the hidden hand comes out and safes the existence of the free market through bashing unproductive monopolies to the ground. That somehow doesn't work, as Bill Gates can tell. No, innovative destruction and competition have to be secured through other means, favourably not hidden and real. Remember, as Smith pointied out, the first thing good traders will try ist to establish a cartel.

As for the democracy part, it is a well-known fact that proper goverment can only be secured through having as much direct-democratic means as possible. Can't stand that hysterical dancing in circles in represantive systems.

 

Nice ideas Mr Smith, but they're only good for populations of about 10,000 not 10,000,000...