Adam Smith anyone?

[Charmin One]

We Dems should quote Adam Smith, the father of modern capitalism. Some examples include government should get involved if wealth inquity is too great. He also said that any law that favors the worker is good. He also believed in a progressive tax system (I think). He was also a moralist.

I think today’s economic system is a perversion of his ideas. We dems should research and quote him more. It’s not Karl Marx. It’s freaking Adam Smith!

Does anyone have more Adam Smith quotes and beliefs to share?

[markodochartaigh]

1. Here are a few more

"What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."


"The rich do wrong and boast of it,
while the poor are wronged and beg forgiveness"

"Wild donkeys of the desert are lion’s prey;
likewise the poor are feeding grounds for the rich."

Whoops, the last two are from the Bible.

[MagickMuffin]

2. Search Adam Smith quotes, there are several sites

Here’s one that I found.


https://www.adamsmith.org/adam-smith-quotes/

[cachukis]

3. Most readers don't finish. Often they get his

transactional stuff, but never get the wisdom of his constraints, farther in.

[Igel]

4. But mostly for moral grounds, not economic.

https://archive.md/Cx90v

It's been pointed out that the basis for the poverty measurements in the US are skewed. There are two, and each side picks the one that buttresses its point to be made in that particular argument. I prefer the CBO's consistently--reading how to reconcile the official and CBO's numbers is enlightening. For various reasons, I'm 99.9% sure that this was a Biden-era work, untainted by Trumpian smudging.

[Blue Full Moon]

5. Adam Smith considered this his greatest work.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments.
Just to warn if you try to quote Smith or talk about him to MAGA you will be accused of being a communist. The morons think that Adam Smith was a communist.

[Xolodno]

6. A friend of mine once made an anti socialist comment on facebook.

So I proceeded to quote Adam Smith (he forgot I was an econ guy).

He commented and said it sounded "socialist". I responded by saying "the father of capitalism in your words a socialist?!" Yeah, that shut him fairly fast.

Another one I like to use, when someone states its Marxist. My response "Well, what is Marxism? And mind you, I studied economics". They commonly, state various lines in which I say "nope, he didn't say that". Until the point they ask "well, what is it then?". Which I reply, he never left a blue print of what socialism was, only a philosophy as he was also a philosopher. So nobody knows.

Only thing we have is Leninism and Maoism. Plus variations of it. And they are communist systems, not socialist and there is a difference.