#Adam Smith

[nando161mando]

Oops

[alpaca-clouds]

How the French Revolution lead to Capitalism

Alright, this is another thing that I was asked about from some Castlevania peeps, as I mentioned this. And I guess, yeah, it is fair that should elaborate on this.

The French Revolution - somewhat inadvertent - gave us capitalism and everything that came with it. Sure, capitalism would not have happened without colonialism and mercantilism already being in place, but that does not make it less true that the French Revolution was very influential in giving us the system we have now.

If school taught you anything about the history of economic systems, it was possibly that the system before capitalism was feudalism. Chances are, everyone skipped over mercantilism.

To quickly go over it again:

Feudalism was more than just an economic system, but basically is a word to describe medieval society overall. Under feudalism pretty much only nobility and the church can own anything - especially land. Everyone else is just leasing it from them and will hence have to pay part of their harvest or whatever they make on that land to the nobility that owns it. Meanwhile the nobility is beholden to whatever king they live under as well, making the money automatically acrew on the top of the pyramid. If harvests were good, this could work fine. But in years of bad harvests the peasants were often fucked.

Mercantilism was the trading system that was brought on by colonialism. To make it short: Mercantilism was a system that sought to exploit the colonies for their raw materials, to then create products from those within any given country to enhance the value. It also sought to mostly export goods and not import them (colonies were after all "part of the country"), so that the country could acrew as much money (as in gold and silver) as possible. While a lot of the companies used for this trading were held by nobility, this is not true of them all. As such the mercantile system allowed for certain merchants to become as rich if not richer than nobles.

Which brings us back to the French Revolution. Again: France had once again a war with the English. After all, chances are that if you pick any time before the French Revolution, England and France were at war. And because of that war, France then went to help the American Revolution. But two wars one after another put France in dept with a lot of people, and Louis XVI could no longer pay this dept back. So he raised taxes. And as nobility and church, who held more than 50% of the wealth of the nation, were not taxed, the peasants were like: "I don't think so, buddy." Partly, too, because the last two years had had really bad harvests and people were already starving. Hence: Revolution.

One of the earliest things the Revolution established, was that "every man is equal and should be treated as such in the eyes of the law" (of course, at this time, with the asterisk of "unless they are a slave"). While women were generally still discriminated in large parts of France, they still also gained a lot more legal protections and rights such as no-fault divorce. (Which Napoleon quickly did away with, and it then took until 1975 in France that no-fault divorce returned into law.)

Now, some of you might point out, that The Wealth of Nations was written before the French Revolution. But to that I say: "Well, Marx wrote Das Kapital in 1867 and last I checked, we still don't have communism."

Smith, when writing, The Wealth of Nation was largely inspired by the fact that he did not like the Mercantile system in place. As someone who read the darn thing (no, I do not recommend it) I also still have to say, that it is not the worst. While Smith assumes some things that by now we know are wrong (like barter), this is far from the Chicago school capitalism of our days. Smith even muses about the question that his proposed system might work better, if there is some safety of housing and food for the laborers.

Though of course we should also keep in mind, that Smith was originally a theologist and boy howdy, does it show. Something that modern economists do not like to admit: When Smith talks about the "invisible hand of the market", he does not mean that the market is somehow all-knowing and perfect. He means literally God! He basically says: "Well, God will keep the market balanced."

But as I said: Smith very much - just like Marx - laid out a criticism of the current system and a theory for how to improve it. He did not manage to get this system pushed through.

Because at this point Edmund Burke entered the picture. He was a British statesman, who most certainly had some thoughts on the French Revolution. I would even argue that some of them were valid, but not all. Two very valid and for the time progressive thoughts he had were, that he opposed slavery and capital punishment. He also criticized the Revolution for the "everyone is equal" bit, while clearly not treating slaves as equal. A much less progressive thought that he had was, that nobility was a good thing, actually, and so was the monarchy, and everyone actually profited from that. He was a very religious man and thought that the system of kings and nobles was indeed intended by God.

However, Burke eventually befriended Adam Smith, and the two of them spend days talking about the economy and God. And through this Burke realized one thing: If the people were no longer willing to just accept the rule of nobles because God said so, they might very well accept it, if it was based on merit.

Now, I do not want to make Burke out as a mustarch twirling villain, because he honestly believed that this was a good thing that would somehow help everyone.

Most of all, he believed in this idea of thr "natural order" of things. (This is a theme that the vampires bring up again and again in Castlevania Nocturne. The idea, that if not by the laws of God, then some still are fated to rule by the law of nature.) And he believed in clear societal hierarchies.

And from this arose the idea of capitalism and the meritocracy. Basically: Yes, we use a free market, and those who have the most money and hence the most influence actually have earned this position through their hard work. They are in this position by their own merit. Please ignore, that former nobility with their generational wealth had a much better starting position in the free market, than your average peasant Joe.

And here is the thing: Burke was at times the paymaster of Britain, so his thought kinda mattered. And while he did not live to see the thoughts he and Smith shared come to fruition, he is one of the big reasons, this system arose.

It was a way to secure nobility's rule over everyone else, even after the death of the old system.

And mind you, this kinda stuff was absolutely also discussed in France. Because once the people managed to get somewhat the same rights for most people, there absolutely was a conversation whether certain things like food and a living space should not also be included in those rights. Especially as during the French Revolution the price of bread and soap (among others) was very, very instabile, making the thought that the state should guarantee it a very natural one.

Some of the people living under the French Revolution - especially those, who also brought forth the anarchist thought - were absolutely proposing something we would today call socialism at the very least. But of course, in the end it was for naught, because the Revolution eventually failed - and once Napoleon was in power, such conversations were quickly stopped.

Of course, it should be noted, that either way: The system we live under during those last 25 years has a lot more in common with feudalism once again, than anything Adam Smith envisioned. And while Smith was also a conservative, he did not approve of feudalism.

[nobigneil]

An Evening With Baldur's Gate 3 by BAFTA Games!

[queercodedangel]

"the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”

- Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Martin Pengelly at The Guardian:

Protesters calling for Israel to cease fire in its war with Hamas who have disrupted US public events and infrastructure are practicing “leftwing fascism” or “leftwing totalitarianism”, a senior US House Democrat said, adding that such protesters are “challenging representative democracy” and should be arrested.

“Intimidation is the tactic,” said Adam Smith of Washington state, the ranking Democrat on the House armed services committee. “Intimidation and an effort to silence opposition … I don’t know if there’s such a thing as leftwing fascism. If you want to just call it leftwing totalitarianism, then that’s what it is. It is a direct challenge to representative democracy now.” Smith was speaking – before the outbreak this week of mass protests on US college campuses, many producing arrests – to the One Decision Podcast and its guest host Christina Ruffini, a CBS News reporter. Ruffini asked Smith about protests in his district, including vandalism at his home and a town hall meeting disrupted by protesters demanding an end to the Israeli bombardment of Gaza prompted by attacks by Hamas on 7 October. Disruptive, aggressive protests are “illegal … completely wrong … and enormously dangerous”, Smith said, adding: “I really want people to understand – and I put out a statement after they shut down a town hall meeting that I was trying to have [in March] – what’s going on here. “And everyone’s like, ‘Well, you understand their passion and all that. And I do understand that, I do. This is a life-or-death situation. It is certainly not the only life-or-death situation that I and all policymakers deal with. But it is one that is important. But that’s not what [the protesters are] doing. “What they are trying to do is they are trying to silence opposition and intimidate decision-makers. I’ve been doing town hall meetings for 34 years now, in some pretty hotly contested environments … [but] I have never had a town hall that I couldn’t keep under control enough so that people had the chance to say their piece. “But [the protesters’] goal and their objective was not to get their point across. It was to silence anyone who dared to disagree with them, to make sure that only one voice was heard. And their other goal was to intimidate. That’s why they’re showing up at member’s houses.”

[...] “I got two words into it and they started screaming at me again. So this is a different thing than your standard protest. In my view, the solution to it is if they are committing a crime – which by the way, shutting down a freeway, shutting down an airport, intimidating people, there’s a crime – [they] ought to be arrested.” Protesting at public figures’ homes should also be subject to arrest, Smith said. “The point of it is intimidation. And I think it is harassment. It’s a crime, and I think [they should] be arrested for it. “… But you know, when you are shutting down freeways, shutting down airports, frankly putting people’s lives at risk – If you’re an ambulance trying to get through to hospital – then that’s going beyond getting your point across, and you’re trying to intimidate and silence people in a way that I think is troubling.”

Excuse me, Rep. Adam Smith (D-WA)?! Pro-Palestinian protesters on college campuses are not the ones silencing the opposition, but pro-Israel Apartheid apologists like you are the ones squelching freedom of speech.

Your call to arrest the protesters reeks of fascism!

[coffee4harper]

ALL HUMAN RECORD IS A LIE??!??!?!?!?! YOU TWIST IT INTO WHAT YOU WANT TO BELIEVE?!?!??!?!? BUT WE KNOW THE ROT INSIDE YOUR HEART?!?!?!?!??!?! YOU CRAVE FLESH?!?!?!

[the-torchwood-archive]

Something that never seems to get mentioned during conversations about Adam is that he essentially took a large chunk of Ianto's job. Historian and relic keeper. That smacks of archivist to me. I think he'd probably make it into a much cooler job than Ianto ever did, if we're being honest.

Considering that Adam rewrote Cyberwoman so that it was him who executed Lisa, I wonder if his presence in the archives related to that.

He also left Torchwood One in the same year that Ianto started and was probably also in Information Retrieval, although we now know that Ianto was only in that position for a month. I wonder how that played out.

Obviously none of that actually happened, but if he touched enough memories than it could have been real, for all intents and purposes.

I really think that there's so much potential in an Adam and Ianto Big Finish story.

[1000rh]

...our standard account of monetary history is precisely backwards. We did not begin with barter, discover money, and then eventually develop credit systems. It happened precisely the other way around. What we now call virtual money came first. Coins came much later, and their use spread only unevenly, never completely replacing credit systems. Barter, in turn, appears to be largely a kind of accidental byproduct of the use of coinage or paper money: historically, it has mainly been what people who are used to cash transactions do when for one reason or another they have no access to currency.

– David Graeber, Debt: The First 5,000 Years (2011)

[elkoko]

Ya lo dijo Adam Smith "Los ancho para mí, lo estrecho para ti"

#neoliberalismo #capitalismo #impuestos #Humor

[canadianabroadvery]

“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind” Adam Smith, renowned economist and philosopher. Adam Smith's critique of self-interest and greed, among the powerful.

[nando161mando]

[theivorybilledwoodpecker]

[racefortheironthrone]

The recent roosts about economics, would it be fair to say that you don’t think particularly highly of Adam Smith?

I think Smith's critique of mercantilism was rather unfair, and I think he was deeply self-contradictory, but I would say that he was among the better classical economists. There is a reason why Marx began with Smith.

[spilladabalia]

The Unholy Two - Garvin Stomp

[yorgunherakles]

bendeki en iyi şey kendime olan hoşnutsuzluğumdur.

saint augustinus - itiraflar

[the-torchwood-archive]

Ianto and Retcon

Here's something to ponder on.

In Almost Perfect, Ianto is administered what they refer to as "anti-retcon", which makes him recall things he has forgotten.

"It'll take a while to start working. If it works at all. Maybe three days. Sooner if there's a trigger. Plus, there's a tiny danger you might remember Everything."

It's never addressed in text, but would that Everything also include Retconned memories?

Memories like Adam? What if both the man and the memories began creeping back in?

All I'm saying is that it's a great opportunity for a Big Finish story. A nice GDL penned dark!Ianto story that brings back the wonderful Bryan Dick. Maybe even Kai, considering that Rhys had seen Adam and wasn't Retconned as far as we saw.

Obviously there's no way BF would write a story that has required reading of a sixteen year old out of print book, but still. A girl can dream.