... Al most divides intgo classes--precursor to Marx, etc. (Remember he does not see the Age of Industrial Revolution full blown). Is this true about employer collusion. Mass production implies mass consumption. Wages have to be enough to buy goods, particularly other peoples' workers. Henry Ford paid his workers $5 an hour so that they could buy Model "T's" -here Smith is wrong, but still important given Smith's time.Smith's policy is important to the rise of modern liberal state--creat wealth for public happiness unfettered. Freedom = wealth. In another book, Smith (a friends of Hume) he thinks that ethic theory from our emotions--sympathy makes charity possible. III.Smith homo exonomicus (how people act economically) is the apotheosis of human heteronomy. (Scrooge types are of Dickens' not Smith. Dickens saw a different age of machines) A.Desire is raised to the status of a principle, and reason becomes "the slave of the passions." Reason allows us to maximize the satisfaction of our non-rational desires. B.A given quantum of wealth may not be sufficient for human happiness but it is surely necessary. C.Smith does not believe that people are always rational utility- mazimizers. He believes that ethical theory is derived from our emotions and has no rational foundation. D. Smith established the discipline of economics. His pereceptions were very influential among Marx and other later critics of capitalism. These critics were concerned more with the distributional consequences of capitalism than with its productive capacity. ...
