Laissez Faire Lets Prices Adjust

Adam Smith
-1776 = Wealth of Nations
-Gov'ts do not need to control & regulate trade (thinking internationally)
- "free & peaceful association" --> good things

Laissez Faire: allow people to do what they want
1) Gov't important b/c provide polices & courts
2) National defense --> protection
3) Public Works -->roads, things gov can do that private corp. won't

How Will People be fed if King does not force it? Why not anarchy & chaos?
--> People will pursue self interest & provide goods
1) Rights to property
   ---> ownership protected; allows people to invest
2) Vital division of labor exist
  --> Rqd for economics; engage with other people
3) Exchange must be peaceful & mutually agreed upon
  --> voluntary; don't rob or kill
4) No special privledge

Physiocrats => Moral Philo => Hume => Smith

** Source of Wealth => ability to produce & exchange **

Think, poor b/c of trouble producing stuff (not resources, not population)
-People have moral obligation to seek more than own self interest
-Mutual exchange w/ limited gov't oversight
-Best possible use of competition; not argument to leave things as they are
  --> doesn't always work; not utopia, but works b/c it allows people to adjust their activities in reaction to society
1)Parties in markey buy/sell @ ? price    2) Anybody can participate
3)? 4)law should not control entry

Laissez Faire does not oppose: taxes, safety net programs
-system of stable rules that allow ppl to respond creatively with certainty

Spontaneous Order = commercial society (capitalism) self emerged, not gov't decided

Ferguson: (SMP) history/evol of important institution
Where does etiquette, morals, customs come from?

*We want to ease the burden of doing things*

We have something betwn instinct & reason that compels us to make our lives easier

Smith: the future wealth of Eng. threatened by:

1) "predjudics of the public; Smith = initially biased

2) Guards self; conspire to screw people over (think 2 business men drinking/talking)

Eng. in early 1800s grain price quadrupled -> Jews brought bread in from outside

--> land lord developed system of protection

Corn Laws

 - imposed sliding duties on the importation of grain, min price for Eng.

 -taxed French & German

 - wheat prices rose to twice weekly wages

Anti Corn Law League 

 - 27 yrs before the corn laws were repealed

-->Eng allowed free trade of all goods -->forced other countries to lower their trade barriers

Marx: capitalist engine = mass production

-takes care of people who are not est.

-inequality not necessarily the worst

1) inequality that matters most = health, practice relig, polit, power -->access to necessities 

-Note: can't be necessity today if it wasn't in 1790s.. 

*More capital a country has, the smaller the importance capital is??

-More cap -> more people invest

US = 25% of income property, steady pay

achievement = opportunities to extend & develop

materialism = nonsense