Economic Liberalism and Communism
Love,
Egoism, Competition, Private Profit
What commands our society? Love? Competition, market
forces and private profit?
According to Adam Smith, the father of Economics, love
has little or no importance in economic life:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the
brewer, or the baker, that we can expect our 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.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
More than a hundred years after Adam Smith, John M.
Keynes, one of the top economists of twentieth century,
classified in harsh terms the nature of the regulating
rules praised by Adam Smith: «gluttony». It’s gluttony
that commands our economic life. It’s not love.
Surely there have been some alternative experiences to
the market system vindicated by Adam Smith, namely the
communist experiences, and to a lesser degree the
social-democratic experiments. But they have failed, or
are in regression…
And we may ask: why have communism and other projects of
collective love failed so clearly in their application
to society and to economic life? Why does liberalism and
the market system, with its profit motive and egoistic
viewpoint, appear as incontestable winner?
Adam Smith gives himself the answer:
By pursuing his own interest [people] frequently promote
that of the society more effectually than when [people]
really intend to promote it.
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations.
In other words: the promotion of the society’s interests
within the principles of love fails because we are
intrinsically egoist. Without constraints and our
egoistic engagement, the economic system falls asleep.
But does this picture correspond to the entire truth?
Does this mean that our societies can or should work
merely or basically according to the economic market
principles of profit and competition?
See, for clues:
Market Laws, Egoism
and
Love In Our Societies
Critics to the Economic
Market System
Quotations
Principles of Economic Liberalism
Adam Smith, 1723-1790, English economist and philosopher,
The Wealth of Nations.
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer,
or the baker, that we expect our 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 necessities but of their advantages.
The Wealth of Nations
It is the highest impertinence and presumption, therefore,
in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy
of private people, and to restrain their expense, either by
sumptuary laws, or by prohibiting the importation of foreign
luxuries.
The Wealth of Nations
Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual
revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally
indeed neither intends to promote the public interest, nor
knows how much he is promoting it. He intends only his own
gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an
invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his
intention. (…) By pursuing his own interest he frequently
promotes that of the society more effectually than when he
really intends to promote it.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations
All systems either of preference or of restraint, therefore,
being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple
system of natural liberty establishes itself of its own
accord. Every man, as long as he does not violate the laws
of justice, is left perfectly free to pursue his own
interest his own way, and to bring both his industry and
capital into competition with those of any other man or
order of men.
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of
Nations
Books, Films,
Cultural Stuff on these and
other related issues? See
Love Essays Store
(in association with Amazon)
See, for more information:
Market Laws, Egoism and
Love In Our Societies
Critics to the Economic
Market System
Português
