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From: LearnLiberty
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  • Yup, the scope of going into a sweat shop and doing the same simple thing a million times for 12 hours straight with few breaks and then having your 8 year old son start working and doing the same thing. That allowed for a great deal of ingenuity? Sorry, that explanation is not satisfactory for me. Didn't Smith comment on how immoral division of labor was in the same book???

  • @evilsoda00 Smith talked about a lot of things libertarians don't talk about. Another interesting thing that Smith talked about was how government needed to regulate the economy even with the invisible hand. I guess LL doesn't really want to talk about those little tidbits of info, they're inconvenient to their agenda.

  • Comment removed

  • I found this quote by some guy who was really concerned about the division of labor:

    "The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise his invention... 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,...

  • What Adam Smith failed to realize is that the Invisible Hand never gives you the reacharound.

  • "Guns, Germs,and Steel" as well as "Outliers" have been pushing my thinking about things like this to make me want to know a much longer and more detailed history of an area to try to see why they might be technologically and economically successful or not. The speaker seems to be focused on the fairly recent, which isn't horrible, but it's no "they domesticated X number of animals and crops by 8000 BCE and so had gotten immune to many diseases by year ...and so beat nearby hunter/gatherers...

  • "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty or justice."

    Adam Smith, in this quote, seems to be saying "monopolies and trusts are OK with me." Does anyone have a different interpretation? Please give a thoughtful response.

  • @Tanksareforcowards It seems like a warning, not an endorsement or willful acceptance.

  • @newguy33X Yes, I agree with you! it's a warning.. A warning which I do not hear repeated by free-market advocates who use his name to bolster their credibility.

  • STOP MAKING VIDEOS AND GET A JOB YOU PRICKS.

  • @leftwingersunited Stop posting and get a job you idiot.

  • How do you respond to Chomsky's criticism that Adam Smith believed division of labor made people more ignorant and was actually a negative thing?

  • What about the middle east, for example. they are hardly progressive by any means. Forget focus, its the natural resources that gives them wealth beyond our western imaginations. Compared to their wealth ours is nothing.

  • @rao76 How do you explain Japan? Where are their natural resources? With an advanced society you don't need natural resources. You can trade.

  • @JackGriffin2 To trade you need something to trade with. With natural resources, it is yours for free, like the Arab world. With Japan, there is innovation, as long as they innovate they can trade. But look at their stress level on the society which is represented by their high suicide rates.

    On the other hand, look at the middle east. They are lazy as hell, obnoxious and backward social values, but still rich. This is the difference.

  • @rao76 Natural resources may help but are not sufficient or even necessary for a country to be wealthy. And the natural resources do not even help if the country is not sufficiently advanced. Their are plenty of poor economies with money gushing from the ground and plenty of wealthy economies with few natural resources.

  • @JackGriffin2 Yes, but that is only the state of affairs as is today, and that is because of historical reasons, colonisations, world wars...there was a huge shift in wealth from one place to another. This is only temporary, you can see the balance setting back...its happening.

  • But what gives a people the ability to focus on these things? Obviously if you live in a god-forasken desert you don't have the time for such endeavors (you're just going to spend 24/7 scrounging around for food). It seems rather naive to utterly disconnect a society's natural setting from the equation...

  • So have any of U read the book, The Wheels of Commerce? Volume 1 and 2.

    U must have if you buy this BS.

    These books and people that wrote them could never have imagined the technology we have today.

    It was not possible in their minds.

  • How would some societies ban the division of labor? By law?

  • The Wealth of Nations is much like The Origin of Species in the sense that they both laid the ground work for their respected fields (Economic theory and Evolutionary Biology), but since their creation much more research has been presented and much more is known today.

  • @Jamez773 except that Biology is science and modern economic theory is propaganda.

  • @xRA1D32x - The latter might actually apply to Paul Krugman.

  • @StateExempt The latter applies to Paul Krugman as well as all of the other backwards pseudo-scientific economists. Monetary economics is a destructive cancer

  • @xRA1D32x - But not Austrian. 

  • @StateExempt austrian economists are some of the most deluded.

  • @xRA1D32x - Austrian economist are some of the most informed. As the likes of Peter Schiff have made rather apparent to those willing to pay attention.

  • The Wealth of Nations is much like The Origin of Species in the sense that they both laid the ground work for their respected fields (Economic theory and Evolutionary Biology), but since their creation much more research has been presented and much more is known today.

  • Uh, nope, it's just me, Gabe Newell.

  • People should look up and thumbs up @xRA1D32x 's comment so others can se the actual truth.

  • wow make me wanna promote my music even more -kush evans

  • @ReviveLiberalism Smart people read Marx for the unintentional humor.

  • LOLOL apparently human prosperity is a nation ran by money-hoarding corporate owners, WHO BARELY PAY TAXES, that through dumbshit politicians, make it completely obvious that they don't give a shit about the people who vote because the voters have been bashed to death by empty, stupid slogans and arbitrary political words like "liberty" to even have the fucking capacity to vote properly in the first place. jesus christ...

  • @NUGNESS123 Also, you should really spend some time reading about G.K. Chesterton. It's quite possible that both you and Adam Smith are correct. Regulation that is sold to us as "reigning in" Big Business simply makes small businesses raise overhead and cede marketshare to the big boys.

    The reality is that less Government means smaller businesses are more competitive, which both follows Adam Smith's philosophy and resolves the capitalist oligarchy of which you speak.

  • @NUGNESS123 "Too much capitalism does not mean too many Capitalists, but too few." -GK Chesterton

  • @MrWolfenstein81 "there shall be no gods before me" -god. quotes mean nothing, and they are not arguments, they are appeals to populous or appeal to authority if used as an argument.

  • funny, because unless you have the money to invest into your interests you're not going to be able to develop any of this "human ingenuity" you speak of. Every single thing has today been turned into a commodity for sale. How is a poor person supposed to develop any talents at all when they are struggling to feed themselves. Perhaps that's why the highest rates of innovation come from countries with large social programs. This channel is utter bullshit propaganda.

  • @xRA1D32x Well whats the point of him developing any talents when he's being taken care of by good ol' uncle sam?

  • @Cubology Monetary Incentives destroy drive and ability when it comes to cognitive functions. Look up RSA animate "The Suprising Truth Behind What Motivates Us." People do things because they're interested in them. Why do you think people invest their own money to buy musical equipment or film equipment and become amazing at it with no incentive to make money off of it. Loads of people have hobbies, You don't need money to motivate.

  • @xRA1D32x The candle problem is a joke. 1) It assumes the market is completely random. 2) It actually shows that government incentives don't work either, 3) Business owners don't want to outright maximize pay, it's called the laws of supply and demand. 4) It didn't check for how people in their own fields do when incentized. (Ex: Cooks solve a cooking problem)(No one studies to solve the candle problem) 5) Averages might not matter in the market, it might only matter how long 1st place took.

  • @xRA1D32x Of course you don't, but how is a man that has always depended on the government going to have any motivation on learning a productive skill. Hobbies are great, but most people who have hobbies also have another productive skill or an actual way of funding those hobbies. Tell me, do you know any unemployed project dwellers that have a passion or a hobby that will motivate him to pursue a profession? These "hobbies" aren't doing any favors to anyone if they are being funded by taxpayers

  • @xRA1D32x Of course you don't, but how is a man that has always depended on the government going to have any motivation on learning a productive skill. Hobbies are great, but most people who have hobbies also have another productive skill or an actual way of funding those hobbies. Tell me, do you know any unemployed project dwellers that have a passion or a hobby that will motivate him to pursue a profession? These hobbies aren't doing any favors to anyone if they are being funded by taxpayers.

  • @xRA1D32x Are you referring all the large social programs Britain had when it started the Industrial Revolution?

  • @JackGriffin2 No, modern times. Switzerland, Norway, Luxembourg. "ht tp :// blog . ted . com / 2011 / 10 / 24 / how-economic-inequality-harms-­societies-richard-wilkinson-on­-ted-com /" you'll have to fix the spaces between

  • @xRA1D32x Evidence? I'm not willing to discount the lessons of history because we live in "modern times".

  • @JackGriffin2 What lessons would those be? Did you even follow the link and watch the video?

  • @xRA1D32x The lesson of the Industrial Revolution. It is a counterexample to your statement that innovation comes from countries with large social programs. You seem to dismiss that example because it wasn't "modern times".

  • @JackGriffin2 The simple fact that human ingenuity exists in any system is not surprising at all; in fact that's what we humans are very good at. Yes, there were some great innovations during the industrial revolution, as well as during much of the history of the United States. However, when looking at the innovation rates (Patents per capita) of different countries it becomes clear that those with less income inequality have greater rates of innovation. Google Richard Wilkinson

  • @xRA1D32x

    This says the US is number 3 in the world in patent apps per capita:

    "nation master.com /graph / ind_pat_app_res_ percap -patent-applications -residents -per -capita"

    (spaces added)

    As a side, I don't think it makes much sense to compare Luxembourg to the US. Luxembourg is the size of a small

    city and the US has the 3rd largest population in the world. Luxembourg just will not have the issues of a large country.

  • Empty seats in the background? Aesthetically pleasing, but why aren't the seats filled? What message are you attempting to convey with an emplty auditorium? In Freedmans videos from the 70's they simply showed lectures with student interactions. Seems like learn liberty should give these profs their own recording equipment and record what they ALREADY teach. Then LL could edit the footage however they wanted.

  • This is all BS.

    People have robbed the resources of others for thousands of years that’s how real wealth however you define that is acquired.

    So what happens when we create enough good technology so we don't have to work?

    Isn't that our goal?

  • @CosmosPrivateer I'm not sure you have the widest understanding of life and economy. Nor grammar, for that matter. There needs to be punctuation between "years" and "that's"; that is a good place to start.

    Next, read some books. "Wealth of Nations" is probably a bit heavy for you now, but I'd recommend "How an Economy Grows (and Why It Crashes)" by Peter Schiff. It explains how wealth is created (not merely 'acquired' or 'robbed' as you suggest).

    Hope abounds; ignorance is correctable.

  • @MrWolfenstein81

    Our economy is created by consumption, if we don't consume we have no economy. Peter Schiff is just another shill same as you.

    By the way you must of understood what I was talking about or you wouldn't have pointed out my bad grammer. So wheres that put you at?????

    Adam Smith could never of understood the technology we have today.

    Your a tool for a system that's out of touch with the world we live in today.

    FO

  • @CosmosPrivateer

    1. "Must have," not "must of."

    2. "Grammar," not "grammer."

    3. "where's," not "wheres."

    4. "Never have," not "never of."

    5. "You're," not "your."

    6. Your theory that our economy is driven by consumption and not production is limited by your narrow viewpoint because you likely don't produce anything yourself and so your paradigm is extremely limited.

    7. If you are going to advance a point that relies on your intellectual credibility, it's good to know how to spell.

  • @MrWolfenstein81

    Like I typed

    FO

    Your a boat anchor dragging the human race under.

  • @CosmosPrivateer - Another Venus Project fanboy?

  • @StateExempt

    Not at all. Just someone that lives in the real world and sees it as it is. Who are U? What do U think about each day when U wake??

    I see our planet as it is today, how do U see it today???? I do not look into yesterday or the future because none of that can be.

    I see what it is today.

  • the invisible hand sounds sexual

  • @bryanlopez1084

    When Adam wrote that I think his invisible hand meant the hand of god.

  • I love this channel

  • Thru this video and others, under the banner or "LearnLiberty", I have learn more about the economy then all the schooling I went to. Thank you LearnLiberty !!!

  • I like that his tie looks kinda like the dollar bill. :)

  • This poor, but brilliant man suffers from dissociative identity disorder. Luckily, he only hosts one other personality. It is one everyone knows. It goes by the name Christopher Walken.

  • Remember Cantillon!

  • @KillerWhaleSFl You've chopped and screwed your quote sir. Not only that you've misinterpreted what it says. Amazing that someone could be as stupid as you and confuse it with being clever. Fail moar please, it makes us laugh.

  • Great video as always. Guess I've got to add another book to me "to read" list.

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