/lit/ - Literature

>>18955646
Yes, its essential, but its a SLOG. Get ready to learn about copper and wood in 1600s France and Scotland, with one or two pages about how education and the church should be publicly funded while all other spending is laisez-faire.

If youve spent time with any lolbertarian, you already undertand the gist of this book

>>18955682
Who would this book be essential for?

>>18955703
I think its one of those books everyone interested in politics should read, because it made such a huge difference. And despite it aging so poorly, many of the pages still resonate, and lay the foundation of modern economics.
And i hate that this book is seen as a lolbertarian bible, because in it Smith has points that even a Marxist would agree with, and a fascist would drool over

>>18955731
>And despite it aging so poorly
I have never heard anyone else say this. what about it aged so poorly?

>>18955646
Read this instead

>>18955747
Well the stock market was created just around two hundred years before its publishing, and Smith wasnt aware of the potential damages that it would do, for example 2008.
And he created the whole “free market is le good” meme, which is wrong in hindsight for reasons we already know.

>>18955761
>And he created the whole “free market is le good” meme, which is wrong in hindsight for reasons we already know.
Get out.

>>18955761
have you actually read him? This is a very stereotyped answer that doesn't accord with the nuance that Smith actually shows.

>>18955996
Then give a nuanced answer, prove that /lit/ reads books

>>18955755
Uncle Tom

>>18955755
That book is trash.

>>18955646
Not OP, but I'm currently reading it and it truly is a pain to read. Would you recommend any secondary sources to complement it?

>>18956041
>Would you recommend any secondary sources to complement it?
Sure, Basic Economics is its revised and corrected edition with examples extending beyond the Napoleonic Wars.
You may skip the original version altogether if you read BA. (neither is libertarian btw, everything slightly different than Marx is libertarian for economically clueless commies)

>>18956007
He’s for free markets with minimal government intervention. I haven’t read the whole thing yet, but he suggests that economies should be be left to sort themselves out.

>>18956628
Sounds basically like "free market is le good" to me. Minimal means almost never, or by a tiny amount.

>>18955755
>Sowell
into the garbage it goes

>>18955646
Its not "a read", its a tedious 1000 page tractate, its the result of a lives worth of work by an intellectual.

>>18956019
>>18956681
Y u no liek sowell?

>>18955646
yes

>>18955646
Yes and ignore all the retards above me.

>>18955646
I'm almost through the first book and so far nothing is groundbreaking but it's still pretty interesting

>>18955646
>reading a book by a skitzo

>>18955646
read this along with it

>>18958165
>nothing groundbreaking
it laid the foundation silly

>>18955957
He's right

>>18955682

I read it about a year ago and the autistic stuff about copper, wood, opening up new gold/silver markets in South America was some of the best stuff about reading it.

>>18958220
fair

>>18955703
Essential for rich ass niggas

>>18955646
I was told not to read it because it is too comprehensive and influential that it'll permeate all your economic thoughts in the future.

>>18958233
About...

>>18958171
Still more substantial than your economic treatise.

>>18955755
Thomas "nigger" Sowell.

>>18955755
Abysmal recommendation, anon

>>18956019
>>18956010
>>18959446
Faggots
>>18955646
Yes, along with this - the updated version.

Bump

>>18955646
yes

>>18958907
Who the fuck told you that?

>>18955682
>Get ready to learn about copper and wood in 1600s France and Scotland
That sounds fun actually

Do you not like reading?

>>18955682
Filtered

>>18955761
>>18956007
While Smith did think that markets were, on balance, beneficial, he didn't think they were unreservedly good. Nor did he ascribe to them an overwhelming place in human happiness or general social affairs, only serving as the 'social glue' for anonymous and distant relations in a fairly circumscribed economic sphere. And many of the virtues he ascribes to the market have more to do with effects and enables in the more important spheres of human interaction. The 'Wealth' in Wealth on Nations isn't the holdings of the king or the balance of trade, but, in a sense, human capital. Or more properly, the affluence and general wellbeing of all members of society. Commercial Society (what we would consider the market) was one of the engines which can deliver a base level of material and social good which benevolence cannot. Smith was influenced by the stoic concept of the 'expanding circle' of moral obligation, where one feels greater moral sentiments towards those closest to you, and these sentiments diminish the further the subject is from your personal position. When one gets to the level of market exchange and international trade—in essence, interactions between strangers—the moral ties become so weakened as to be incapable of motivating action, so the harmony of interests must step in to regulate what could be a very precarious relationship. The good it provides is a way of interacting with strangers in a mutually beneficial fashion, which was becoming increasingly important in the movement from gemeinschaft to gesellschaft which was occurring in Smith's day. Beyond it's regularly powers, he also believed the market was a way of promoting a kind independence and dignity in the common people.
>Nothing tends so much to corrupt and enervate and debase the mind as dependency, and nothing gives such noble and generous notions of probity as freedom and independency. Commerce is one great preventive of this custom [dependency].
The market provides a degree of independence by allowing all individuals to at least own and direct their own labour, the thereby hopefully afford property and a kind of yeoman existence. It is similar in a way to Aristotle's argument for property in The Politics
>No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.

>>18962330
So it isn't the 'loadsamonee' 'capitalism-ho' understanding of markets, but a more reserved, 'it helps mediate relations and preserve peace among strangers, and dignify and improve the condition of the otherwise dependent poor' kind of understanding of markets.
>commerce and manufactures gradually introduced order and good government, and with them, the liberty and security of individuals, among the inhabitants of the country, who had before lived almost in a continual state of war with their neighbours, and of servile dependency upon their superiors. This, though it has been the least observed, is by far the most important of all their effects.
That's the main reason he liked markets, but as to why he thought they should be free had little to do with the typical libertarian idea of the incompetence or inability of the state to beneficially intervene in the market. His main concern was with the tendency of economic interest groups to use the state to promote their own corporate interests:
>People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the publick, or in some contrivance to raise prices. [...] But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
We should recall that during this time, 'the state' was very small and generally confined to the duty of 'the defense of the realm'. State intervention in the economy to this date had been an outgrowth of this idea, first in taxation as revenue raising for armies, then later in the development of mercantilism when military costs had become so exorbitant and conflicts so protracted that hoarding as much bullion as possible to use in the event of a war was seen as a necessary matter of national security. Thus tariffs had to be set up to guarantee a positive balance of payment to prevent capital (in this case bullion) outflows. Economic associations within England had long played a hand in promoting these policies as it protected their industries and often gained them exclusive export markets. But the privileging of international relations came at the cost of the domestic market, a market the state almost completely ignored. Which is why Smith infamously talks so much about the corn laws, a policy that artificially buoyed the price of wheat and barley, disproportionately effecting the poorest in society for the interests of the balance of trade, spurred on by the great landholders who profited from it.
In this context, Smith's 'nightwatchman' state was really just the normal state of things in his day minus the marauding trade (and real) wars. It seems minimal in our day only because of the massive growth in the state's scope and prerogative in the late nineteenth to twentieth century.

>>18962335
So while Smith did like markets, and preferred them to be free, it was for quite specific reasons that don't align with the stereotypes. But, as i said, he wasn't unreservedly promoting them. He realised that the market brought problems as well. A few quotes:
>The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too are, perhaps, always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion
to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid and ignorant as is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind renders him, not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary duties of private life. [...] His dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the expence of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilized society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
and
>As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them, come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must then pay for the licence to gather them; and must give up to the landlord a portion of what his labour either collects or produces.
and
>Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity. The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy. But the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be the rulers of mankind, though it cannot perhaps be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of any body but themselves.

>>18962342
On the topic of the stock market, or at least joint-stock companies, Smith does actually talk about it's shortcomings:
>But the greater part of those proprietors [of joint-stock companies] seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business of the company; and when the spirit of faction happens not to prevail among them, give themselves no trouble about it, but receive contentedly such half yearly or yearly dividend, as the directors think proper to make to them. This total exemption from trouble and from risk, beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in joint stock companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes in any private copartnery
>The directors of such companies, however, being the managers rather of other people’s money than of their own, it cannot well be expected, that they should watch over it with the same anxious vigilance with which the partners in a private copartnery frequently watch over their own.
This, to a degree, does predict the 2008 financial crisis. After all, wasn't it precisely the directors of the banks making the sub-prime lending knowing that they could offset the risk with 'other people's money' through securities exchange, and the traders thinking they too had 'total exemption of risk, beyond a limited sum' through asset-backed securities bundles (believed to be stable due to their diversity), but who 'seldom pretend to understand any thing of the business' in the nature of the loans packed in them? This is a simplistic and stilted way of analysing about the GFC, it's true, but i think you can see the basic logic for the crisis in Smith's writings. Even then, i don't know why you have the expectation that an eighteenth century political economist should be prophetic about a securities crisis that occurred 250 years later.

>>18955761
>for example 2008
That was caused by government interventionism distorting the market

>>18955755
checked & based
niggerfaggots seethe at sowell

>>18961182
One of my college professors

>>18955646
Read the moral sentiments book instead

>>18962710
lol no

>>18955646
Maybe an abridged version

This was a decent introduction for me.

>>18955646
Absolutely. Smith is relevant still to this day.

>>18955755
Based. Also read Mises/Hayek/Rothbard/Hoppe/Schiff

>>18963777
Yes it was imbecile.

>>18964276
>marx
>relevant to economics
pick one

>>18956010
>>18956019
>>18959265
>>18959446
What is it with economically illiterate leftists and hating Sowell?

Is it because he's black, doesn't vote for socialism and has more intelligence than the last & future 10 generations of their families?

>>18964314
Considering Keynesian Economics is just a bastard child of Marx and capitalism, I say it's relevant.

>>18955646
Yes, because he’d be aghast at the state of modern western capitalism lol

To all the Marx bashers itt, his economics is shit but his criticisms of capitalism and his social theories justify his relevance

>>18964304
Rothbard hated Smith

>>18964319
What is it with economically devout rightoids? Why so blind?

>>18955682
Absolutely filtered

Why does everyone become so cliquey when the topic of economics or politics is brought up?

>>18965220

It's because people attach importance and seriousness to the subjects, and there exist sharply opposed ideas in both realms. People emotionally invest themselves.

>>18964319
Ah yes, because the left are bad people, no need for an honest look into why your political opponents favor different policies, no need to understand the nuances of the debate. "dey must be da socalists. dat make dem bad!". Read more, post less anon!

>>18963777
It's true, the government forced the banks to give a quota of loans to minorities, minorities have on average very bad credit, this created an incentive to try to reduce the risk from these loans, this incentive leaded to CDOs, rating agencies bias and a bunch of other crap that ended in the crash
The creation of perverse incentives is one of the main reasons why trying to control the market always fail

>>18955682
>he doesn't like copper and wood

>>18965830
>Ah yes, because the left are bad people
Aren't they usually for Communism/Socialism and deniers of the genocides from every time dictatorships that formed from it's tries?

>>18966318
Fuck off bigot, centrally planned economies are totally not true socialism™, everyone knows the USSR, PRC and Nazi Germany were capitalist totalitarian regimes

>>18966336
Capitalists (aka kulaks) were genocided there.
In USSR they had show trials where people were sentenced to death for selling food at free market prices.
It was True Communism, it obviously didn't work as predicted, never will.

>>18966318
I bet you're the type of person who thinks Bernie Sanders is a communist

>>18955646
What do you think. pick it up and find out.

>>18965814
You can be passionate and serious about something without falling into name calling and circle jerking

>>18955755
They aren't even comparable

>>18966067
>the government forced the banks to give a quota of loans to minorities, minorities have on average very bad credit
Banks engaged in systematic fraud with liar loans because it was profitable not because the government was forcing them to let McDonalds employees finance McMansions in the mid-2000s.

>this incentive leaded to CDOs, rating agencies bias and a bunch of other crap that ended in the crash
If you want to throw blame at rating agencies for being morons (which they still are) that's fine but be more clear on what incentive you mean. Banks wanted profit and people wanted homes. Do you think profit and homeownership are perverse? Auditing agencies can only survive by selling their services to corporations so of course they will tend to have to fudge some things to stay in business.

>The creation of perverse incentives is one of the main reasons why trying to control the market always fail
Does it? The Bush administration made a decision to not intervene initially which allowed things to play out how they did. In Canada prices just kept going up. A lot of retards thought the housing bubble "had to pop" for over a decade but it never happened.

>>18968432
Canada had rent control and a housing shortage. That's why its expensive to buy homes.

>>18968512
>Canada had rent control and a housing shortage
There definitely isn't any federal rent control and more American cities (as a percentage) probably have it than Canadian

>That's why its expensive to buy homes
You're skirting the point. Why did prices collapse around 2008 in America but not in Canada? Government policies to keep prices rising seems to have obviously worked