Comments on: The Theory of Moral Sentiments: Happy 250th birthday

By: Club Troppo » Adam Smith and Web 2.0

Club Troppo » Adam Smith and Web 2.0 — Mon, 14 Feb 2011 11:26:46 +0000

[...] first one was published a couple of weeks ago second one is in today’s SMH and Age. There’s also a longer more academic piece on the [...]

By: Ingolf

Ingolf — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 08:21:37 +0000

Lovely piece, Nicholas. Thanks.

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 06:58:17 +0000

Yes, you are looking at the Government spending in the order of 1% or 2% of GDP. Though as productivity increased more would have been spent on all those good things by private means anyway.

For example the great majority of people could afford to pay for basic education before public education was provided “free of charge”.

By: Nicholas Gruen

Nicholas Gruen — Sat, 11 Apr 2009 05:29:09 +0000

Yes, and what he prescribed – more spending on health, education, infrastructure and poor relief would have amounted to at least a doubling of the size of govt – wouldn’t you think (though I would imagine it would amount to a reduction in the size of government today)?

By: Rafe Champion

Rafe Champion — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 23:55:13 +0000

Very appropriate and thought provoking for the time of year Nicholas!

The importance of the moral framework of society has been under-rated and under stated for a number of reasons. One is that for a long time a generally Judeo-Christian moral framework could be assumed and this is oriented to good works, responsibility for the poor and weak etc at least in principle. The power of that orientation was recruited by Marxism.

That framework has been undermined by the adversary culture that got a leg up in the French revolution, driven by the idea that everything conventional is rotten and corrupt and needs to torn down.

At the same time the idea of moralism and morality got a bad name in progressive circles by association with authoritarian religion and a narrow focus on sexual morality.

Smith got very close to the full suite of the classical liberal agenda – limited govt, rule of law, property rights, competitive markets and the moral framework. That is the way of the future. The point about competetive markets is that they generate win/win outcomes!