[ExI] philosophy poll

[Will Steinberg]

On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 9:33 AM Giulio Prisco <giulio at gmail.com> wrote:

> William James
>

Quite a pragmatic post ;)


On Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 10:04 <spike at rainier66.com> wrote:

>
>
> Excellent choice.  Adam Smith had economics figured out way back in the
> 1770s.  Had Karl Marx been a reader of English and had Adam Smith’s 1776
> book Wealth of Nations, the horror of communism would never had needed to
> infect the planet.
>
>
>
> spike
>

I'm not sure where to start with this one, but maybe first off I would say
that Karl Marx did read WoN, and other Smith, as if it wasn't painfully
obvious.

Capital is part of the lineage of WoN, cf. labor theory of value.  Also.
Smith was pretty much pre-capitalist and probably would have chosen his
words more carefully if he could have seen the influence that WoN would
have.

I like to say that Capital is the book that Adam Smith would have written
if he had the luxury of being able to read Wealth of Nations like Marx was
able to.

Have you read both?  Or just hate them damn pinkos, Sen. McCarthy?

NB: A lot of modern day economists might take umbrage at the idea that
Smith "had economics figured out", especially because he was not able to
see modern capitalism at its finest.

BTW, I am not a communist, I just believe in market failures.  As does any
economist worth their salt.
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