A Week in Review at The Fix Liberty Project
Posts dated September 20, 2021 – September 26, 2021
Curated below are our posts from this week. Please chime in with your thoughts and questions by clicking the “Comment on Facebook” link — and remember to share those threads you find particularly interesting with your friends. Let’s #FixLiberty in American culture!
📖 "With respect to the nature of wealth, the mercantilists often confused gold and silver, the markers of wealth, with wealth itself. Yet [Adam] Smith regards it as obvious that real wealth consists not in precious metals but rather in an abundance of affordable goods and services: 'It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove,' he writes, 'that wealth does not consists in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases.' [David] Hume too had insisted that money is nothing more than a medium of exchange: 'It is none of the wheels of trade: It is the oil which renders the motion of the wheels more smooth and easy. If we consider any one kingdom by itself, it is evident, that the greater or less plenty of money is of no consequence; since the prices of commodities are always proportioned to the plenty of money.'… Though the point seems obvious to many today, and though Hume was not the first to make it, one historian of economic thought observes that 'no one before him had stated the idea as clearly or as succinctly.'" -𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘧𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘧𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘰𝘳 by Dennis C. Rasmussen (p. 167)
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Regarding economic protectionism: 📖 "To give the monopoly of the home-market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation. If the produce of domestic can be brought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless. If it cannot, it must generally be hurtful." -𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 by Adam Smith (Book 4, Chapter 2)
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📖 "Often, going through this process [of critical thinking] will convince you of the wisdom of doing nothing, of waiting… While this mode of thinking is important for individuals, it can be even more crucial for large organizations, where there is a lot at stake for many people." -𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘓𝘢𝘸𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘏𝘶𝘮𝘢𝘯 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 by Robert Green (p. 164-165)
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📖 "This is what our desire to protect our property, what we have worked for and set aside for ourselves, forces us to do. It forces us to take the plunge, to enter into this network of rights, duties, and obligations with other people, because without it we will never feel secure about our property." -𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘤𝘰𝘵𝘴 𝘐𝘯𝘷𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘰𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘞𝘰𝘳𝘭𝘥 by Arthur Herman (p. 96)
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📖 “Contempt is impractical and bad for a country dependent on people working together in politics, communities, and the economy. Unless we hope to become a one-party state, we cannot afford contempt for our fellow Americans who simply disagree with us. Nor is contempt morally justified. The vast majority of Americans on the other side of the ideological divide are not terrorists or criminals. They are people like us who happen to see certain contentious issues differently… We have become far removed indeed from Thomas Jefferson’s admonition that a ‘difference in politics should never be permitted to enter into social intercourse, or to disturb its friendships, its charities or justice.’” -𝘓𝘰𝘷𝘦 𝘠𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘌𝘯𝘦𝘮𝘪𝘦𝘴 by Arthur C. Brooks (p. 24-25)
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📖 "Nothing is more graceful than habitual cheerfulness, which is always founded upon a peculiar relish for all the little pleasures which common occurrences afford." -𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘰𝘳𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘔𝘰𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘚𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 by Adam Smith (Part 1, Section 2, Chapter 5)
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✝️ "Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him." -Proverbs 30:5 (ESV)
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📖 "The combination of westward expansion and technological innovation [in 1800s America] brought a leap in agricultural productivity… In 1900, the average agricultural worker produced about two-thirds more stuff than in 1800. The productivity revolution changed the face of rural America. Women and children were increasingly liberated from backbreaking toil: women focused on domestic economy, empowered by new machines such as the sewing machine and inspired by new fads such as 'scientific housework'; and children spent more time on education. The productivity revolution also changed America as a whole. America's cattlemen and cowboys turned beef from the luxury of the rich, as it still was in Europe, into a regular treat for the masses… Diets became richer and less monotonous: Americans could eat peaches from Georgia, oranges from Florida, asparagus from California, as well as staples such as been from the Midwest and cod from New England. The term 'dietician' (from "diet' and 'physician') entered the language for the first time in 1905 as people began to worry not about having too little to eat but about having too much." -𝘊𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘪𝘴𝘮 𝘪𝘯 𝘈𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘪𝘤𝘢 by Alan Greenspan and Adrian Wooldridge (p. 121)
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📖 "It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect out dinner but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chuses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of this fellow citizens." -𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘢𝘭𝘵𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘕𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 by Adam Smith (Book 1, Chapter 2)
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📖 "Democracies, as we know, are prone to every error from incompetence and corruption to misguided fetishes and gridlock. Therefore, it is astonishing, in a sense, that we would be willing to submit the direction of our societies to the collective wisdom of an imperfect and frequently disengaged public. How could we be so naïve? To that fair question, we must reply: how could anyone be so gullible as permanently to entrust power -- an inherently corrupting force -- to a single leader or party? When a dictator abuses his authority, there is no legal way to stop him. When a free society falters, we still have the ability -- through open debate and the selection of new leaders -- to remedy those shortcomings. We still have time to pick a better egg. That is democracy's comparative advantage, and it should be recognized and preserved." -𝘍𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘮: 𝘈 𝘞𝘢𝘳𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 by Madeleine Albright (p. 117)
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