Greenspan Hails Father of Modern Economics

[54anickel]

http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050206/greenspan_2.html

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan paid tribute on Sunday to the father of modern economics, saying that 18th-century philosopher Adam Smith was "a towering contributor to the development of the modern world."

snip>

Greenspan said the Great Depression of the 1930s did provide support for a time to those who argued that communism, with its government control of economic decisions, represented a better approach.

But the argument between free markets and government-controlled economies ended with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the collapse of the Soviet Union, said Greenspan, a Republican first appointed by President Reagan.

"There was no eulogy for central planning. It just ceased to be mentioned, leaving the principles of Adam Smith and his followers ... as the seemingly sole remaining effective paradigm for economic organization," Greenspan said. "A large majority of developing nations quietly shifted to more market-oriented economies."

more...

edit to change the snippet :evilgrin:

[glitch]

1. These guys and their selective interpretations. Just like with the Bible

and Darwin, Adam Smith joins the ranks of the grotesquely misunderstood. Blech to Greenspan and his b/w myopia. Blech and blech ptooey.
:puke:
Wealth of Nations is available at Project Gutenberg:
http://www.gutenberg.org/catalog/

[Fovea]

2. Perhaps Alan would be well served

by a meditation on the difference between the word 'control' and the word 'regulation.'

Greenspan sound like a man whistling in the dark.

[necso]

3. I think that a few quotations are appropriate.

"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."

"To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature."

"As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce."

"Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer."

"I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good."

"All money is a matter of belief."

"Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all."

"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."

"The rate of profit... is naturally low in rich and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin."

"The subjects of every state ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state .... 'remedy inequality of riches as much as possible, by relieving the poor and burdening the rich.'"

"In a society of an hundred thousand families, there will perhaps be one hundred who don't labour at all, and who yet, either by violence, or by the more orderly oppression of law, employ a greater part of the labour of society than any other ten thousand in it. The division of what remains, too, after this enormous defalcation, is by no means made in proportion to the labour of each individual. On the contrary those who labour most get least. The opulent merchant, who spends a great part of his time in luxury and entertainments, enjoys a much greater proportion of the profits of his traffic, than all the Clerks and Accountants who do the business. These last, again, enjoying a great deal of leisure, and suffering scarce any other hardship besides the confinement of attendance, enjoy a much greater share of the produce, than three times an equal number of artizans, who, under their direction, labour much more severely and assiduously. The artizan again, tho' he works generally under cover, protected from the injuries of the weather, at his ease and assisted by the convenience of innumerable machines, enjoys a much greater share than the poor labourer who has the soil and the seasons to struggle with, and, who while he affords the materials for supplying the luxury of all the other members of the common wealth, and bears, as it were, upon his shoulders the whole fabric of human society, seems himself to be buried out of sight in the lowest foundations of the building."

...

Adam Smith also disliked (perhaps "hated" is a better word) the corporations of his day... And I imagine that Mr Greenspam is rather selective about his use of the old master, or sources in general... a common enough practise on the other side.

[sandnsea]

4. FDR's a communist

That's where they're headed. Take apart every social program because if the government interferes with the economy at all, it's communism. They called FDR a communist back then. They're Baaack.

[54anickel]

5. That's how I took the last part of the article as well...n/t

[sandnsea]

8. Decided it was time for this

Sometimes I think the Democratic Party is just thick in the head. What Greenspan said is a gift. It's not looking like too many people are seeing it. It's the proof that their real aim is to dismantle social security and it follows that the rest of the New Deal social programs will be destroyed too. That's what they're about and Greenspan just admitted it.

FDR Was A Communist

http://www.lightupthedarkness.org/blog/default.asp?view=plink&id=331

[54anickel]

10. Thanks! Great link!...n/t

[Mika]

6. Greenspan also loves Ayn Rand

Many hearts still held captive by Ayn Rand

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/10830786.htm

Rand's promotion of laissez-faire capitalism free of all government regulations made her a fountainhead for many economists and conservative thinkers. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Alan Greenspan, no less, wrote a letter to the editor of The New York Times in 1957, responding to the paper's negative review of Atlas Shrugged and calling it ''a celebration of life and happiness.'' Greenspan has called Rand ``clearly a major contribution to my intellectual development.''
Like Greenspan's, some love affairs with Rand last a lifetime and are not a ''phase.''

[kentuck]

7. After 4 more years of Dubya....

We'll get a glimpse of how well his "free markets" work...

[kodi]

9. He'd have found the market primitivism of the current day unrecognizabe

Smith saw the necessity for public intervention to create or sustain the public interest, and took for granted the existence of a government responsible to the community as a whole, providing the structure within which the economy functions.

Classical political thought says that the purpose of government is to do justice for its citizens. Part of this obligation is to foster conditions in which wealth is produced. The obligation is not met by substituting the wealth-producer for the government.