I have never read Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. I should try again, but I am either not smart enough or too attention-deprived to struggle through such long bouts of dense prose.
I take comfort in knowing, however, that most who cite him have not read him either, otherwise they would cite passages like this, which I am picking up in Loretta Napoleoni’s Rogue Economics:
Commerce and manufacturing can seldom flourish long in any state which does not enjoy a regular administration of justice, in which people do not feel themselves secure in the possession of their property, in which the faith of contracts is not supported by law, and in which thew authority of the state is not supposed to be regularly employed in enforcing the payment of debts from all those who are able to pay. Commerce and manufacture, in short, can seldom flourish in any state in which there is not a certain degree of confidence in the justice of government.
(Napoleoni is, by the way, an Italian economist and part-time resident of Whitefish, Montana.)
There are other snippets around, as well, that indicate that Smith was well-aware of the effects of power – not evil people – but all people as we behave when we have power over others.
The right wing once took to wearing Adam Smith neckties, a subtle indication to one another that they had absorbed lessons inaccessible to the rest of us, that markets flourish when left alone, and that governments impede markets, even impoverish and enslave us if left unchecked.
As Smith points out, without government, there are no markets to flourish. What we have is chaos and tyranny. That is where unregulated markets naturally lead us, as we seemingly have to learn again, and again, and again …
As my old Aristotlean football coach used to say, all things in moderation. (Yeah, that’s right – an Aristotlean football coach, an oxymoron.) Many on the right think those of us who see government as an essential part of a flourishing economy as weak people, unable to compete, fearful of freedom.
But our personal characteristics really have very little to do with any thinking about these matters. It’s not about cowardice or entrepreneurship, desk-slavery and job “security” versus risk-taking. Most people are natural followers – that’s our tribal heritage. That’s why we have survived and flourished.
It’s about living in a climate where we are protected from excess. Government can do that for us. But when government gets out of hand, as many say it did in the post-war era, we were able to vote out the people who gave us that philosophy, and usher in the era of deregulation, tax cuts, and wealth concentration.
The problem that I see now is that we don’t have the power to usher out the people that we ushered in. They have power over us, and are not going to let it go. They control the media, most of the government, the corporations and both political parties (we are only allowed two). These “free” market patrons have given us bubbles and meltdowns, unfettered greed, preventive wars, massive debt and a seeming desire to undo every good thing that came out of the New Deal.
That’s the tyranny of private power. Oddly, it is harder to dislodge than tyrannical government. That is a contradiction, on the right wing anyway.
Over here on the left, we get it. And we don’t need to wear ugly ties to demonstrate it.
What do we have left?
We have a few tools. We can still use our government-provided courts and sue the bastards, and occasionally win. (That’s why “trial lawyers” are so despised. They are a countervailing power.) We can strike, boycott, sabotage. We can organize. Sooner than later, I hope, we will rediscover the power of popular organization against entrenched private power.
Oh yeah: And we can vote. … … … … I’m joking, fer chrissakes! We have only two corporate choices when we vote. Voting is not organizing. Voting dissipates power. It’s a mere illusion of control.
Piece of Mindful 