Stupidly beautiful artwork... AI hasn't taken this from us!

James Grant, of Grant's Interest Rate Observer and author-in-his-own-right fame is out in the WSJ speaking eloquently and at length about Adam Smith. It's very nice to see! #1537872

America’s blowout Fourth of July wasn’t the only semiquincentennial of 2026. “The Wealth of Nations,” too, turned 250, and the old pages still deserve turning. Socialism is on the wing these days—crony capitalism is in the news—and freedom needs a friend.

Yep, we know (#1519566, #1533994, #1547735). And the economics discipline of today is very different from the thoughtful, verbal, beautiful, flowy and powerful words Adam Smith penned 250 years ago:

It helps that the author of “The Wealth of Nations” was no economist in the present sense of the word. He wrote well, though slowly (his book was 27 years in the making). Nor did he deploy the jargon and mathematics that today render the deliberations of the doctors of economics unintelligible to any but a fellow adept.

Speaking of which: #1552506, #1552045

In return for a three-year commitment to accompany the third duke of Buccleuch on his Continental tour, Smith received a lifetime pension of £300 a year. Of such solid stuff was the pound sterling made that nobody seems to have asked for an inflation-escalator clause.

To be fair, there's a +57% price drag across Smith's 67 years of life... (that's a CAGR of, uh, 0.67%... funny). Largely speaking, in the Medieval and early modern economies, prices move upward only in response to large discoveries of monetary metals (read: South American mines) or wars. Otherwise, aggregate prices return back to where they were, regression-to-the-mean, hashtag metallic money #899666

In his time at the University of Glasgow, Smith lectured on moral philosophy, semantics, history, rhetoric, logic, literary style, jurisprudence and the history of astronomy (no division of labor for the geniuses of that intellectually unbounded era). Smith’s first book, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments” (1759), was a rumination on right and wrong and on the uses of human sympathy in determining which was which.

Beautiful. #1021163

Also: Schumpeter being ruthless...

Though no great hand at economic analysis, Smith was a propounder of economic doctrine. He stood for enterprise, individual liberty and free trade, and against the tyranny of state-sponsored monopolies. He devoted nearly a fifth of his magnum opus to attacking the established quack system of mercantilism, which sought to maximize exports and minimize imports for the empty prize of a positive balance of trade.

Some recent quacks-in-Chief should pay attention.

"Mercantilist governments enriched producers at the expense of consumers while impoverishing the nation as a whole"

if the debt should finally sink the public credit, Smith prescribed an open and avowed national bankruptcy rather than the treacherous debasement of the coin of the realm.

Ah, yes, the rulers in charge should definitely take notice! And this? Yes, rulers: PAY ATTENTION!

...and LOL?! I've read the whole thing and honestly can't recall this

"The Smithian doctrines of 1776 live mainly today between the covers of dusty books."

The ideals of free trade, untrammeled enterprise, sound public finance and currencies convertible on demand into gold or silver have virtually reversed 180 degrees. In this, however, may lie the hope for a revival. In the realm of economic ideas, all is cyclical and nothing is permanent, neither the good nor the bad.

https://archive.md/JzCMg