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Adam Smith's Soft Side (nationalist w/ "populist streak")
The Globalist ^ | December 14, 2005 | Sherrod Brown

Posted on 01/06/2008 10:24:37 AM PST by unspun

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Adam Smith was a man of common sense, a moralist. Some people cite "Wealth of Nations," forgeting the word, "nations." Some people use Smith's term "invisible hand," to hide his caveat that human hands must be kept from controlling and manipulating the hands of others.

It is ironic when some who otherwise believe in republicanism forget that a republic is maintained by checks and balances, nation by nation. As James Madison reflected that men are not angels, he and his republican contemporaries never envisioned that incorporations of men should be regarded as somehow living on the angelic plane, free of the constraints of mankind's civil socieity.

And when an incorporation of men purports to be "multinational," or even "global" (read, extranational) then even more attention must be paid by nations of free men, in order to prevent encroachments of tyranny, whether that tyranny comes by trickle or flood.

(And we should not let Democrats such as Sherrod Brown take the moral high ground on such principles, where Republicans used to be and should be now.)

1 posted on 01/06/2008 10:24:40 AM PST by unspun
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To: unspun

-bflr-


2 posted on 01/06/2008 10:31:33 AM PST by rellimpank (--don't believe anything the MSM tells you about firearms or explosives--NRA Benefactor)
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To: unspun
And we should not let Democrats such as Sherrod Brown take the moral high ground on such principles, where Republicans used to be and should be now.

What high moral ground? Do you think restricting trade is moral?

You must think Smoot Hawley was the most moral piece of legislation ever.

3 posted on 01/06/2008 11:09:18 AM PST by Entrepreneur
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To: unspun

The book was obsolete as it rolled off the presses.


4 posted on 01/06/2008 11:10:55 AM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: Entrepreneur
What high moral ground? Do you think restricting trade is moral?

Of course, in exceptional cases...

...when it involves and supports slave trade.

...when it transfers business ownership to foreign interests

...when it profligates America's means of production

...when it brings down Americans' economic opportunity.

...when it brings down Americans' atandards of living.

...when it brings down America, as George Soros would have it and his globalist friends are "fine with."

So did our fouding fathers. So did Abraham Lincoln. So do originalist Republicans.

5 posted on 01/06/2008 11:29:44 AM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: Entrepreneur
You must think Smoot Hawley was the most moral piece of legislation ever.

Red herring. Smoot Hawley was a gross overreaction.

6 posted on 01/06/2008 11:31:51 AM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: RightWhale
The book was obsolete as it rolled off the presses.

That book explained universal principles in this world.

Now, if by obsolete you mean basically mistaken, you can refer to the foreign philosophy of the Anti-Stalinist Russian reactionary and moral revisionist, Ayn Rand. In the opposite direction from Smoot Hawley, another gross overreach.

7 posted on 01/06/2008 11:36:14 AM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: unspun
if by obsolete you mean basically mistaken

No. Out of date and inapplicable to anything in the world.

8 posted on 01/06/2008 11:37:57 AM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

I don’t find that principles ever go out of date, whatever the current world affairs — hence the words principle and current.


9 posted on 01/06/2008 11:40:39 AM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: unspun

They become irrelevant.


10 posted on 01/06/2008 11:41:58 AM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: unspun

I think the lesson to he and us is that “Corporatism” is not the same as Conservatism. Those corporations allowed to do business in the USA must pick if they would be American or based in another nation, then tax policy can be set accordingly, as well as all CORPORATE WELFARE must be ended as well as unfair regulations that stifle competition! That would be a truely free-market (arena) in which many can prosper and the invisable hand can exist!


11 posted on 01/06/2008 11:43:15 AM PST by JSDude1 (When a liberal represents the Presidential Nominee for the Republicans; THEY'RE TOAST)
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To: unspun

I think the lesson to he and us is that “Corporatism” is not the same as Conservatism. Those corporations allowed to do business in the USA must pick if they would be American or based in another nation, then tax policy can be set accordingly, as well as all CORPORATE WELFARE must be ended as well as unfair regulations that stifle competition! That would be a truely free-market (arena) in which many can prosper and the invisable hand can exist!


12 posted on 01/06/2008 11:43:16 AM PST by JSDude1 (When a liberal represents the Presidential Nominee for the Republicans; THEY'RE TOAST)
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To: JSDude1
many can prosper and the invisable hand can exist

Is this database freezing up again?

13 posted on 01/06/2008 11:45:16 AM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

They become irrelevant in the minds of people who neglect principles.


14 posted on 01/06/2008 11:47:37 AM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: unspun

Nobody reads Wealth anymore. Mobody ever did. It’s a classic and it’s irrelevant and useless.


15 posted on 01/06/2008 11:50:07 AM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

Read what you like, the principles that Adam Smith expounded upon are what matter.


16 posted on 01/06/2008 12:01:38 PM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: unspun

Do oil barons or other world leaders read Wealth? Clue: if it had any use at all they would.


17 posted on 01/06/2008 12:03:43 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale

Oil barrons, probably not.

World leaders — probably yes, if they have had a classic, Western education — at least excerpts (you know, it’s video age).

Now, I doubt very many of them read the Bible, either. They probably don’t even get the “Limbaugh Letter.”


18 posted on 01/06/2008 12:09:55 PM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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To: unspun

Wealth is actually on my bookshelf and will be read again after other more relevant books. Wealth should be revised and republished so it has something to do with the past 150 years. Veblen is far more useful.


19 posted on 01/06/2008 12:14:50 PM PST by RightWhale (Dean Koonz is good, but my favorite authors are Dun and Bradstreet)
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To: RightWhale
Now that kind of implied context is palatable. ;-`
20 posted on 01/06/2008 12:16:15 PM PST by unspun (God save us from egos -- especially our own.)
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