- Jul 2022
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www.thegreatsimplification.com www.thegreatsimplification.com
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18:07 - Adam Smith - The Theory of Moral Sentiments
He felt, in the Theory of Moral Sentiment that human beings can control themselves. The Church used to be the moral constraint and there was a big debate about getting rid of it. Adam Smith disagreed. He had faith that the empathic side of human behavior would be present to balance out the self-interest side. He was not right about this, unfortunately.
Our poorer living conditions provide the necessary conditions for inventing technologies that would alleviate our difficult life conditions. Progress has principally been about making our human lives more comfortable but beyond a certain threshold, self-interest started to runaway as technology allowed us to go far beyond survival.
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- Jun 2022
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Local file Local file
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the institu-tions in force in China in the eighteenth century were much more inaccord with Smith’s ideas than those applied in the United Kingdom.
Piketty suggests that eighteenth century China was a better example of economic liberalism in the vein of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations (1776) than the United Kingdom was during the same period. He particularly points out lower taxes and balanced budgets in China, respect for property rights, better markets for labor and goods, competition, social mobility and freedom.
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- Oct 2020
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drive.google.com drive.google.com
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Scottish phi-losopher Adam Smith condemned England’s trade acts f or constrain-ing the “free” market i n his i nstant best seller, The Wealth o f Nations. To this f ounding father of capitalist economics, t he wealth of nations stemmed from a nation’s productive capacity, a productive capacity African nations l acked. “ All t he inland parts of Africa,” he scripted, “seem in all a ges of t he world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state i n which we find them at present.” Meanwhile, Smith praised Americans for “ contriving a new form of government f or an extensive empire, which . . . s eems very likely to become, one of t he greatest and most f ormidable that ever was i n the world.” The found-ing fathers beamed reading Adam Smith’s prediction. J efferson later called Wealth o f Nations “ the best book extant” on political e conomy.
Adam Smith apparently held racist ideas.
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- Dec 2019
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frankensteinvariorum.github.io frankensteinvariorum.github.io
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when they were unhappy, I felt depressed; when they rejoiced, I sympathized in their joys
The eighteenth-century Scottish and British discourse of "sympathy" is especially vivid in the Creature's instinctive opening onto the emotions of others, echoing Adam Smith's arguments in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).
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