Noam Chomsky on Adam Smith _ Invisible Hand - americanfeud.org [www.keepvid.com].mp4

Noam Chomsky, linguist, philosopher,cognitive scientist, explains the real Adam Smith.

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[EndureFocusEngageDie]

wtf wasn't smith FOR division of labour?

[LucBertolotti]

The beggining of the chapter dealt with movement of capital and goods across national boundaries and how people supporting domestic industry benefited their nation AND quote"If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our OWN INDUSTRY employed in a way in which we have some ADVANTAGE." Now is that so hard to understand?

[LucBertolotti]

People forget the end of the paragraph:" It is an affectation, indeed, NOT VERY COMMON among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it. " Smith turns on his grave....

[KrugmanTheKing]

@JesseForgione

Of course, by inherently good, I mean that their pursuit are reducible to human well-being... Smith does say rich people tend to make others better off, but he also clearly points out the problems that the division of labor creates and, those, he despises.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@JesseForgione

The whole argument is still people are inherently good and, if they are free, individual pursuit of self-interest will yield public benefits. The whole idea requires appropriate conditions to take place, as Smith noted and it's perfect freedom.

The actual problem -- and it's where the paragraph Chomsky refers to is so relevant -- is that a massive hierarchical structure of private ownership makes this condition impossible.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@JesseForgione

He notes that in other social structures, people are generally more inclined to reason properly, although as a whole they possess less knowledge than what he calls a civilized society does. He also, as I suspected, relate the ability to reason along with morality and well-being and he suggests public education to solve it partly. And there's no reason for Smith not to think this way, given the circumstances in which he wrote.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@JesseForgione

But this one isn't from the "On the Wealth of Nation," it's from "A theory of Moral Sentiment." There's indeed more than one place in the book as I just verified where he speaks about it, but Chomsky does explain the argument Smith makes anyway.

The omission is indeed annoying as it's a critic he makes, but as I just went through a good part following the quote Chomsky refers to, it's pretty clear he sees division of labor as a potential source of great problems.

[JesseForgione]

@KrugmanTheKing

"They [the rich] are led by an invisible hand to make nearly the same distribution of the necessaries of life, which would have been made, had the earth been divided into equal portions among all its inhabitants, and thus without intending it, without knowing it, advance the interest of the society, and afford means to the multiplication of the species."

[JesseForgione]

@KrugmanTheKing

He did use it once in that context (the one Chomsky claims is the only time), but more famously he used it in the more general sense (the one everyone else refers to).

(Posted below)

I'm not a big fan of Smith. He really sent economics off course with the cost/labor theory of value, which culminated in Marxism. What he got right was not new, and he even got things wrong that others had previously gotten right. But I'm glad he argued against mercantilism.

[KrugmanTheKing]

@JesseForgione

Many people quote Smith to defend private property of the means of production and the organization of labor that follows from it... but it's totally inconsistent with what he considered human value.

You just need that quote where he explains how it makes men incapable of exercising their reason to know how far he despised it: it was even clear that it would make them incapable of moral judgement and of having any noble sentiment... that's who is the real Smith.