The proverb says that the horse's mouth is always the best source. Academically, the main materials are usually the most reliable. So what can be found now by revisiting an important work of the past, a current iconic work offering an infinite number of references and current positions? In the case of Adam Smith's "Exploration of the Nature and Causes of National Wealth", what can be obtained by modifying the text now is enlightenment, a lot of surprises and another understanding, that is, when complexity is reduced to just icons, It is usually more than just missing details.
Written in 1776, the United Kingdom's Union Act was created in England and Scotland for less than 70 years. During the American Revolutionary War, Smith's book analyzed the history of economic and commercial relations in the UK. 39; industrial transformation. The British colonial expansion is underway, and the empire of Portugal and Spain has been established for a long time. The war with the Dutch was bought and won a trade advantage, and the East India Company monopolized the Asian trade and became the de facto ruler of India. The British have become a country to drink tea.
In the economics and political science of the 21st century, Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations" is more associated with rights politics, and is related to requiring free trade and the government to ask the government to withdraw from commercial exchange as much as possible. An activity that is considered to be self-regulating. This position has been affirmed because most of today's transactions are in the hands of companies, and these companies tend to be larger than some governments that have been criticized by corporate defenders for their intervention. So dominant is the thumbnail of the "National Wealth Theory", and the average reader may think that there is no benefit in revisiting the text to seek a new experience. Such a general reader is completely wrong, because this reference to many works is full of surprises.
A summary of the Smith analysis that is often quoted and more often summarized - exactly what this book represents - stems from the author's repeated insistence on the assumption that there is a "natural" order. Smith believes that if you stay alone to find your own level, without interference that can affect the supply or price, then the goods or services you trade will inevitably tend to the natural level of consumption and price, apparently affecting another through familiarity. Demand concept. However, this natural level may be distorted. For Smith, the government's influence through regulation, quotas, taxes, or more common monopolistic behaviors often leads to disruption of human transactions, and its dysfunctionality is often the result of incompetence, because it is caused by improper control. But what Smith often does not quote in his work is that he often accuses producers or merchant cartels of this counterproductive intervention, just like the government. In fact, some of the most intense and severe criticisms of the "National Wealth Theory" are limited to commercial companies, especially the contemporary international trade giant East India. Their corporate interests are condemned by Smith, including profiteering, trade distortions, surpluses and shortages, and even famines and other ills. In addition, Smith is clearly not a friend of those who live in any type of trade association or monopoly, because all of these interests can distort his "natural" market.
Adam Smith clearly favors education and training. He believes that education can develop skills, knowledge and wisdom. He recognizes that different types of human labor will inevitably attract different rewards because different skills and abilities require different commitments to protect them. In fact, he uses his own language to recognize what we now call human capital.
By maintaining the acquirer during his education, study or apprenticeship, obtaining these talents [the access and profitability of all residents and members of society] always costs a real fee, which is a fixed amount of money and is realized on his people. ... the worker's flexibility is improved and can be seen as the same light as the machine or tool that promotes and reduces labor, and although it costs a certain amount of money, it can be paid for. profitable.
This is human capital and an acknowledgement of education as an investment in individuals and society. He also elaborated on the theory of labor value.
The actual value of all the different components of the price is measured by the amount of labor they can buy or order. Labor measures value, not only as part of the price, it solves the labor, but measures the value of the rent itself and the value of turning it into profit... For example, in the corn price, part of the payment The rent of the landlord, the other pays the wages or maintenance costs of the workers and the labor that produces them, and the third person pays the profits of the farmers.
Smith also clearly distinguishes between the use value and exchange value of goods. A hundred years later, Marx will start Das Kapital with a similar analysis. Smith asserts that the tradable price of a commodity covers three cost areas - labor, rent and profit - and opens up two important issues. A century later, Marx would cite greed as the blood of life that controls capital-trade. People who seek to maximize the profitability of commodity costs will inevitably lead to more exploitation of labor because of their contribution to cost. Can be controlled, even frustrated. In Smith's own analysis, the possible impact of price increases is to increase rents and ultimately benefit landlords and landowners. Therefore, even in the work of Smith, those who represent more powerful interests will gain the largest share of trade benefits, even the largest share of growth in the economy, and expand trade.
Smith believes that business owners as a group are no less than conspirators to raise prices. He explained this very clearly
People in the same industry rarely meet, even for depreciation and transfer, but the end result of the conversation is a conspiracy against the public, or to raise prices.
He also warned of charitable intentions, especially those with commercial interests, because they often provide reasons for parties to meet and plot.
A provision that enables people in the same industry to pay taxes on their own in order to provide management benefits for their poor, patients, their widows and orphans, making these gatherings necessary
So, that's why, their worthy goals and major achievements, we often don't believe in sports such as Masonic, Lions, Rotating Companies or charitable businesses funded by corporate wealth.
Smith does recognize that workers may be organized to increase labor costs, just as the owners of course conspire to increase profits. However, he repeatedly pointed out that there is a power imbalance in this apparently competitive relationship between the owner and the worker. The government often legislates against unions, but rarely takes action to curb huge profits. He said that we heard every attempt to organize labor, but there is usually no corporate conspiracy.
We do not have a parliamentary action against lowering the price of work, but many people oppose the merger to raise the price of work.
Masters sometimes enter specific combinations, and even below this [natural] rate, the wages of the labor force are reduced. These are carried out in an extremely silent and confidential manner at the moment of implementation; When the workers yielded, although they sometimes did not resist, although they felt it strictly, they never heard the voices of others. However, this combination is often studied by the contradictory defensive combination of workers, who sometimes do not have any such self-combination provocation to increase their labor prices. Their usual excuse is that sometimes it is a high-priced clause, sometimes a huge profit earned by their owners through their work. But whether their combination is offensive or defensive, they are always fully heard.
Smith seems to link the concept of "nature" to the transactions between individuals and organizations. These transactions are only medium-sized and can only affect a small part of the overall trade of goods. Perhaps the biggest trading group of his time was the East India Company, but this organization usually has incompetence or conspiracy or both. The problem of this contemporary corporate giant has two aspects: its monopoly advantage and political power coefficient. In fact, the company is the de facto ruler of India. In the two hundred years before Amartya Sen complained about the concept of rights, the famine could operate selectively, and often when there was plenty, Smith thought the famine in India was great. The administration is mainly driven by greed.
A few years ago, the drought in Bangladesh may have been very large. Some unfair regulations imposed by the East Indian company's servants on rice trade, some unfair confiscation, sometimes help to turn this deficiency into a famine...
There have never been any other reasons for the famine, but the government's violence has tried to make up for it through improper means...
Orignal From: Adam Smith's discussion of the nature and causes of national wealth - a new look
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