If I live to be 100, I will never, ever understand the conservative mindset

[Redleg]

79. This is a over-simplification of Adam Smith

It has been a while since I have studied The Wealth of Nations. Smith uses the term "invisible hand" exactly one time in the entire work. To my recollection he doesn't say or even suggest that "greed is good." Many people might be surprised to hear that Smith had quite a few things to say about what he saw as unethical business practices, such as collusion among businesses, much of which get ignored by the people who remember Smith only for the invisible hand reference.

I saw Smith as more of a person describing how the economy works. He cautioned about the extreme division of labor leading to terrible conditions for the worker. He cautioned about landlords extracting too high of rent. He cautioned about blindly following one's self-interest without taking into account the effect on the larger society.

I close with a quote from Adam Smith from the Wealth of Nations:

"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."