On the Wealth of Nations
On the Wealth of Nations
“There were a number of reasons that the third part of Smith's betterment trilogy, his work on 'jurisprudence', was never finished. He was busy making revisions to The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He became a government official in Scotland. He died.But I wonder if there wasn't another reason. Smith was a moral philosopher. It may be that at some point he realized politics isn't a good place for philosophy and is no place for morals. Could it have been while he was writing book 5 of The Wealth of... Nations? Smith's old footnote on himself in Moral Sentiments about being concerned with 'a matter of fact' rather than 'a matter of right' could never be applied to a consideration of politics. Politics is all about right, which is to say wrong.Political systems are founded upon paradoxes too deep for philosophy. Adam Smith was aware of this when he was writing Moral Sentiments in the 1750s. He alluded to it in the first chapter: 'A prison is certainly more useful to the public than a palace; and a person who founds the one is generally directed by a much juster spirit of patriotism, than he who builds the other.'1 Yet no father says to a newborn baby, 'Someday you may be warden of Leavenworth.' The best intentions of political systems are refuted by dilemma.MoreLess
Read book On the Wealth of Nations for free
You can download books for free in various formats, such as epub, pdf, azw, mobi, txt and others on book networks site. Additionally, the entire text is available for online reading through our e-reader. Our site is not responsible for the performance of third-party products (sites).
Write Review:
User Reviews: