Today's Article
"To complain of...the
liberal reward of
labour..is to lament
over the necessary
cause and effect of
the greatest public
prosperity," states the
'Bible of Capitalism'.
liberal reward of
labour..is to lament
over the necessary
cause and effect of
the greatest public
prosperity," states the
'Bible of Capitalism'.
The American Spark
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Capitalism Demands A Sharing Of The Wealth
By Cliff Montgomery - Oct. 30th, 2008
The McCain/Palin camp's most recent misrepresentation of the Obama/Biden campaign perhaps is the most
foolish. It claims that Barack Obama is little more than a socialist--or communist, or Marxist (the name-callers
often get confused on the exact nature of their own argument).
Why? Because Obama has said that a national economy does best when it 'shares the wealth'.
As usual, there is a fundamental problem with McCain's thesis: All mainstream economists believe that an
economy must be designed to benefit as many people as possible. They only differ on how that is to be
achieved.
Adam Smith, who in 1776 published The Wealth of Nations--the book often considered the 'Bible of
Capitalism'--was a thinker about as far removed from Karl Marx as one may get. Yet even the high priest of
Capitalism understood that sharing the wealth with the people who actually produce it is necessary for a nation
to remain strong and free.
A few quotes from Mr. Smith's opus are given below:
"A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must
even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family,
and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation."
"Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or
as an inconveniency to the society?"
"Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political
society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as any inconveniency
to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are
poor and miserable.
"It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such
a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." [Italics
added.]
"To complain of...the liberal reward of labour..is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest
public prosperity."
"The liberal reward of labour...increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the
encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the
encouragement it receives.
"A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer--and the comfortable hope of bettering
his condition, and perhaps of ending his days in ease and plenty--animates him to exert that strength to the
utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent and
expeditious than where they are low..."
"It perhaps deserves to be remarked that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the
further acquisition...that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the
happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The
progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The
stationary is dull; the declining, melancholy."
"In a country where the funds destined for the maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying...every year the
demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of employments, be less than it had been
the year before. Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their
own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest.
"The lowest class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other
classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most
miserable and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find employment even upon
these hard terms, but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence either by begging, or perhaps by
the perpetration of the greatest enormities.
"Want, famine and mortality would immediately prevail in that class, and from thence extend themselves to all
the superior classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was reduced to what could easily be
maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had escaped either the tyranny or
calamity which had destroyed the rest."
"The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor...is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their
starving condition that they are going fast backwards."
Like what you're reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of the The American Spark
e-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be
delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!
By Cliff Montgomery - Oct. 30th, 2008
The McCain/Palin camp's most recent misrepresentation of the Obama/Biden campaign perhaps is the most
foolish. It claims that Barack Obama is little more than a socialist--or communist, or Marxist (the name-callers
often get confused on the exact nature of their own argument).
Why? Because Obama has said that a national economy does best when it 'shares the wealth'.
As usual, there is a fundamental problem with McCain's thesis: All mainstream economists believe that an
economy must be designed to benefit as many people as possible. They only differ on how that is to be
achieved.
Adam Smith, who in 1776 published The Wealth of Nations--the book often considered the 'Bible of
Capitalism'--was a thinker about as far removed from Karl Marx as one may get. Yet even the high priest of
Capitalism understood that sharing the wealth with the people who actually produce it is necessary for a nation
to remain strong and free.
A few quotes from Mr. Smith's opus are given below:
"A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to maintain him. They must
even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it would be impossible for him to bring up a family,
and the race of such workmen could not last beyond the first generation."
"Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or
as an inconveniency to the society?"
"Servants, labourers, and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political
society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as any inconveniency
to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are
poor and miserable.
"It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such
a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged." [Italics
added.]
"To complain of...the liberal reward of labour..is to lament over the necessary cause and effect of the greatest
public prosperity."
"The liberal reward of labour...increases the industry of the common people. The wages of labour are the
encouragement of industry, which, like every other human quality, improves in proportion to the
encouragement it receives.
"A plentiful subsistence increases the bodily strength of the labourer--and the comfortable hope of bettering
his condition, and perhaps of ending his days in ease and plenty--animates him to exert that strength to the
utmost. Where wages are high, accordingly, we shall always find the workmen more active, diligent and
expeditious than where they are low..."
"It perhaps deserves to be remarked that it is in the progressive state, while the society is advancing to the
further acquisition...that the condition of the labouring poor, of the great body of the people, seems to be the
happiest and the most comfortable. It is hard in the stationary, and miserable in the declining state. The
progressive state is in reality the cheerful and the hearty state to all the different orders of the society. The
stationary is dull; the declining, melancholy."
"In a country where the funds destined for the maintenance of labour were sensibly decaying...every year the
demand for servants and labourers would, in all the different classes of employments, be less than it had been
the year before. Many who had been bred in the superior classes, not being able to find employment in their
own business, would be glad to seek it in the lowest.
"The lowest class being not only overstocked with its own workmen, but with the overflowings of all the other
classes, the competition for employment would be so great in it, as to reduce the wages of labour to the most
miserable and scanty subsistence of the labourer. Many would not be able to find employment even upon
these hard terms, but would either starve, or be driven to seek a subsistence either by begging, or perhaps by
the perpetration of the greatest enormities.
"Want, famine and mortality would immediately prevail in that class, and from thence extend themselves to all
the superior classes, till the number of inhabitants in the country was reduced to what could easily be
maintained by the revenue and stock which remained in it, and which had escaped either the tyranny or
calamity which had destroyed the rest."
"The scanty maintenance of the labouring poor...is the natural symptom that things are at a stand, and their
starving condition that they are going fast backwards."
Like what you're reading so far? Then why not order a full year (52 issues) of the The American Spark
e-newsletter for only $15? A major article covering an story not being told in the Corporate Press will be
delivered to your email every Monday morning for a full year, for less than 30 cents an issue. Order Now!
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