Comic: The Revised Adam Smith

The ghost of the so-called father of economics chastises those who would use his words for their own misbegotten ends.

Peter Bagge | From the July 2023 issue

(Illustrations: Peter Bagge)

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Gozer the Gozarian 2 years ago

I'm not smart enough to get these comics.
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TJJ2000 2 years ago

It would be nice if the US Constitution got as much attention as Adam Smith. But really; no matter what is said by either - The [Na]tional So[zi]alist[s] will flip it on it's head and pull out a Marxist interpretation. ....because that's what Nazi's do.
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Johnathan Galt 2 years ago

There is no great work which abusive totalitarians will not either simply defile or falsely proclaim promotes their malicious agenda.
1. Brandybuck 2 years ago
  
  It started with the libertarians, who declare anyone not fully anarchist as a downright statist.
  1. TJJ2000 2 years ago
    
    ...and the exact example of what Johnathan was talking about.
    Libertarians have always believed in a *Constitutional* USA but for the Marxist crowd the Constitution is ?anarchist?.... (i.e. "the false claim to promote their malicious agenda.")
  2. MWAocdoc 2 years ago
    
    Both of which labels are vague and misleading, as are almost all political labels. An anarchist is someone who believes in society without any government at all. As an ideal it's impossible as unofficial central authorities - e.g. "syndicates" - arise spontaneously with or without legal sanctions and tend to become "official" over time anyway. And as an outcome it exists in the real world only after environmental or political catastrophes, as in a social vacuum. And a statist is anyone who believes that the state can - or does - solve social problems that cannot be solved any other way, saying nothing about what the problems might be or how many problems government might need to solve. I prefer to consider the meaning of what Adam Smith wrote in order to try to apply the principles to modern problems rather than to enlist his ghost to my cause.
  3. Zeb 2 years ago
    
    Well, either you are for a state or not.
    1. mtrueman 2 years ago
      
      You can be both for it and against it, according to circumstances. David Graeber's last book shows how the state functioned seasonally, growing when people gathered to accomplish something (example buffalo hunt among plains Indians) and diminishing when the purpose of the gathering had been accomplished. The tribes would gather for the hunt and one tribe would be tasked with policing the hunt on a rotating basis. Once the hunt was over, the police would be dissolved.
      https://libgen.is/book/index.php?md5=F567E6E14F95A114FB313F03536A053C
      
      There are other examples from other authors. Hilltribes of south east Asia where the state expands and contracts with the monsoon season.
      
      I think we already have some version of this in our society where the state has a say in laws and taxation, but leaves family life, who we marry, how many children we have, to the individuals.
MWAocdoc 2 years ago

Sorry, but the comic strip is not the best format for this topic! I remember a joke from my childhood about the music fan who visited Beethoven's grave in Vienna and, strangely, heard what seemed to be the Fifth Symphony being played backwards coming from the stone. Nonplussed, the visitor asked the sexton about it. "Do not be disturbed," the sexton told him. "That's just The Master decomposing." No doubt Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave right now if he could see what has become of commentary since the Age of Enlightenment.
mtrueman 2 years ago

"No doubt Adam Smith would be rolling in his grave right now"

One thing Smith and his like minded contemporaries got wrong about the course of capitalism was its tendency to strip people of their independence and autonomy. He saw the need for people to be apprenticed and trained but not to spend their entire working lives in the service of their employers. During Smith's lifetime, it was possible to be apprenticed to a trade, master it and go on to make an independent life. Benjamin Franklin is a famous example of this. Thomas Jefferson had much the same ideals for the farmer.

Capitalist growth imperatives and economies of scale seem to trump individual autonomy and independence. I don't think Smith appreciated this.
1. Zeb 2 years ago
  
  You can still learn a trade and do well on your own.
  Pre-capitalism, most people had to work just to survive. I think it is a tough case to make that people are less independent and autonomous than they were in Smith's time.
  1. mtrueman 2 years ago
    
    "You can still learn a trade and do well on your own."
    
    That's true but most Americans seek out a role of subservience to an employer, often lasting their entire working lives. I don't think Smith saw that coming. He (and Marx, later) was more prescient on the de-skilling aspects of industrialization, I believe, and worried about the moral implications.
    1. kcuch 2 years ago
      
      most Americans seek out a role of subservience to an employer,
      Would you deny them their desires?
      1. mtrueman 2 years ago
        
        I'm not denying them anything. I'm pointing out that Smith and his contemporaries were wrong about capitalism and its ability to deliver independence and autonomy. He didn't see the rise of an economy run by a handful of companies. Walmart employs over 2 millions.
        
        Mark U 2 years ago
        
        So you are both not denying that an individual can make an autonomous choice to work for Walmart, but also saying that the autonomous choice is not autonomous?
        
        mtrueman 2 years ago
        
        Independence and autonomy is working for yourself. Being the master of your own fate. Holding a position of subservience to an employer is not. An employee can be fired and lose his livelihood for any reason or no reason. Willingly undertaking a position of servitude doesn't make one independent.
        
        That's not my point, though. My point is that Smith thought that capitalism would lead to a society where individuals would be independent and autonomous, not replaceable cogs in a huge corporate machine.
        
        Mark U 2 years ago
        
        You seem to be confusing having independence and autonomy with being self-employed. Autonomy is the ability to act on one's own values and interests. If you require a person to be self-employed even if that person believes that being an employee is better aligned with that person's values and interests, then you are forcing the opposite of autonomy on that person. If you are advocating that others must act on your choices instead of their own choices, then you are advocating a form of slavery.
        
        mtrueman 2 years ago
        
        "You seem to be confusing having independence and autonomy with being self-employed."
        
        Maybe. Self employment is self directed. Employment by others is being under the direction of others. If you are employed, decisions about when to start work, when to finish, tasks, wages, work mates etc are all in the hands of others.
        
        "then you are advocating a form of slavery."
        Yes, Marx called this 'wage slavery' as opposed to chattel slavery. It's a form of work where most of the important decisions are left in the hands of employers, and the people doing the work have little independence or autonomy.
        
        "If you require a person to be self-employed even if that person believes that being an employee is better aligned with that person’s values and interests, then you are forcing the opposite of autonomy on that person."
        Nobody is requiring a person to be self employed. If anything, the opposite is true, in the sense of a street magician forcing a card on a mark, people overwhelmingly choose employment. My point is that Smith never envisioned this turn of events. He assumed workers, outside a brief period of apprenticeship, would be autonomous and independent.
      2. Religion and Politics, my life 2 years ago
        
        Legally, you can say "most Americans would work for an employer" but as the Founders said ad nauseam you cannot say "this is because they want a role of subservience" . An act is subject to your opinion but you cannot see into a person's will or psyche.
        Adam Smith hated that kind of reasoning
        
        “Every faculty in one man is the measure by which he judges of the like faculty in another. I judge of your sight by my sight, of your ear by my ear, of your reason by my reason, of your resentment by my resentment, of your love by my love. I neither have, nor can have, any other way of judging about them.”
        ― Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
        NB he is not saying you should do this, but that you in fact do this.
        
        St Augustine said it better and more damningly : WE SEE WHAT WE ARE
2. TheReEncogitationer 2 years ago
  
  One thing Smith and his like minded contemporaries got wrong about the course of capitalism was its tendency to strip people of their independence and autonomy.
  
  So are people more independent and autonomous pulling rickshaws and foot-binding, Watermelon?
  1. mtrueman 2 years ago
    
    I don't know about foot binding, you'll have to explain yourself more clearly. But I'm glad you asked about rickshaw pulling. It is definitely an occupation that affords autonomy and independence, as long as the rickshaw is owned and operated by the same individual. I know that such work is stigmatized in Western countries, and it is also in China, but to a much lesser degree. Being one's own boss, or 'lao ban' is much more important in the Chinese culture, and even the street vendor of prepared betel nuts is given the credit for his/her autonomy and independence.
Mother's Lament 2 years ago

Peter Bagge cartoons are one of the few remaining treasures left at this rag.
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Comic: The Revised Adam Smith

The ghost of the so-called father of economics chastises those who would use his words for their own misbegotten ends.

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