can anyone evaluate the extent to which peoples view of adam smith being an advocate of unbridled capitalism?

Question

represents a fair an accurate assessment of smith's idea's (Britains economic performance since 1870)

Answer 1

To build on my answer beforehand, you always have extremists. Those at one end would support massive government interference, regulation, taxation and spending ("big government") and those at the other end would be more free-market ("unbridled"). Adam Smith is *closer* to the unbridled end, so people with these views choose him as an advocate, as he's an intellectual giant.

When Smith wrote "Wealth..." in 1776, capitalism was in its infancy and closer to the "big government" end. Aristocrats held most of the nation's wealth and a huge chunk of the population were stuck in agricultural jobs, rarely creating more wealth than was needed to feed, clothe and heat themselves and pay their aristocratic landlords rent. Mercantilism was the economic received wisdom of the day, with countries only reluctantly importing and very keenly exporting. Smith advocated free trade, as both countries improve themselves by it; which is certainly closer to the "unbridled" view, as it means the Crown, the Parliament and any other authorities should butt out and let capitalists do their thing, trade freely.

One reason you'll find people with all sorts of different, and often contradictory views, each claiming that Smith supported their views, is that Smith is a bit schizophrenic. He's not all that consistent. Academics talk about the "2 Adam Smiths", or perhaps even "3 Adam Smiths". You would write about how sometimes he's "unbridled", sometimes he is "big government". I'm pretty sure, for instance, that he advocated free education, or government-subsidised education, which disagrees with the "unbridled" view.

An example of the 2 Adam Smiths:
"In the Wealth of Nations Smith claims that self-interest alone (in a proper institutional setting) can lead to socially beneficial results. But in his Theory of Moral Sentiments Smith says that sympathy is required to achieve socially beneficial results. On the surface it appears that a contradiction exists. Economist August Oncken referred to this in German as das 'Adam Smith-Problem'".

iqstrike doesn't have a degree in economics, so he's restricted to using "common sense", which leads to phrases like "Taliban capitalism"!

The film "A Beautiful Mind" actually got John Nash's famous Nash equilibrium. This is a kind of solution concept of a game involving two or more players, where no player has anything to gain by changing only his or her own strategy unilaterally. If each player has chosen a strategy and no player can benefit by changing his or her strategy while the other players keep theirs unchanged, then the current set of strategy choices and the corresponding payoffs constitute a Nash equilibrium. Obviously, in the example with pretty girls and one exceptionally beautiful girl, all the men going for the pretty girls and neglecting the beautiful one does not represent a Nash equilibrium as one man can unilaterally defect and go for the beautiful girl (the highest theoretical outcome, using iqstrike's figures, are 10 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 34; his co-operation only results in 8 + 8 + 8 + 8 = 32; which goes to show why the free market is the most powerful engine in productive world).

Answer 2

Communism is state capitalism. It is a fake alternative invented by the rebellious children of capitalists. One genuine alternative is mandatory unions--the real reason the American economy was more successful than the Soviet one was that there were no unions in the Soviet Unions.

Smith's capitalism is fascism--absolute power going to rich parasites. But in the real world, the employees create the value of the investment, so the rich are merely the hired help. If you could see through their well-financed mind control, you'd realize the concept of necessary-but-unimportant, such as a car key, which is worth only $5. Under Taliban capitalism, the keymakers would charge thousands of dollars for a key, claim that it was a free-market price, and prevent any independent keymakers from being licensed.

In the movie, "A Beautiful Mind," there was a scene illustrating the unrealistic and defective results of Smith's ideology. Four very pretty girls and one stunningly beautiful girl came into a bar. Four guys each made a beeline for the beauty, thus insulting the other girls. John Nash interpreted this as the result of each guy going after his most rewarding sexual experience, resulting in less for the male group as a whole.

Mathematically, let's call the beauty a 10, the other girls 8s. If each guy went after a pretty girl first, the result would be 32 for the whole. In Smith's oinkonomics, the result would be 10, so the people as a whole get no benefit from this "All for one, and that one all for himself" fraud.

Adam Smith was just a toy rat for the fatcats to play with.

Answer 3

Adam Smith was balanced and fair. You could skew his writings to prove anything.

He is known as an unbridled capitalist because he has been quoted often in that way. I’m sure that he could also be used to support communism as well.

Since I’m guessing that this for some kind of essay I would go after “unbridled” and define what it means.

Answer 4

His view replaced into that if human beings we are enable free to artwork in direction of their own self-pursuits that the suitable out come for individuals as an entire ought to also ensue. Capitalism adovates this by technique of putting most of the technique of production interior the fingers of inner most proprietors and agencies as adverse to the gov't

Answer 5

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RE :Can anyone evaluate the extent to which peoples view of adam smith being an advocate of unbridled capitalism?
represents a fair an accurate assessment of smith's idea's (Britains economic performance since 1870)
1 following 5 answers

Answer 6

I don't think anyone has proved him wrong yet. All attempts at communism have failed dismally, whilst socialism in the long term has always proved to reduce ecomomic performance and total national wealth.