Manny's Reviews > An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

You've just summed up the whole political spectrum, Manny

I still feel it's possible to add a few details, but I wanted to start with the big picture.

Manny a good book on why the left right spectrum exists is "predisposed" by John Hibbing it explains our personality differences that feed into left/right orientation. Hint it is partially genetic. Avi Tuschman has a book which explains the Darwinian explanation for this variation spoiler it has to do with outbreeding vs. inbreeding which generates Xenophobic and Xenophillic tendencies. Guess which one is left and right. The book is called "our political nature".

I don't think the American Right is against social Darwinism at all, quite the contrary often enough. Why do you say so?

Lenny wrote: "I don't think the American Right is against social Darwinism at all, quite the contrary often enough. Why do you say so?" They aren't into social darwinism per se but an older concept the chain of being. Certain people are ordained to be on top and others are to be below them. It is medieval.

I can see that, though that's basically what social Darwinists are or were about anyway - a way to get their racial group up above the others.

Lenny wrote: "I can see that, though that's basically what social Darwinists are or were about anyway - a way to get their racial group up above the others."

I put a post up just before yours about the psychology of left/right differences the books listed explain a lot of the factors that make people left or right.

They're not against Darwinian selection, they're against the idea of Darwinism so long as there's any hint of it standing as an alternative to their (increasingly literal) dogma. Put policies with a social Darwinist bent to them implicitly (eg- curbing the welfare state in favour of Christian charity and whatnot) and they'll be found to happily side with these more often than not.
You can call it cognitive dissonance if you like, but it's a rich tradition- http://southpark.cc.com/clips/153878/...

We might all be better served if the laissez-faire happy masses who appeal to Smith and forward the invisible hand as a solution to every complication read The Theory of Moral Sentiments first and noted the contrast against Ayn Rand style capitalist attitudes.

Regardless of the ways in which various people use this book as a bludgeon for their views, it is an excellent book and one that I hope you will enjoy intrinsically as well as within the consideration of left-right political spectra.

If you want to read another book that explains some of the weird choices that the American Political Right make, I recommend "American Theocracy". It's 10+ years old, but well-conceived and written. (It suggests why Mitt was able to get the Right behind him eventually - not solely because of his personal wealth that was injected into the campaign.)

Kevin Phillips was the pollster who set up Nixon's southern strategy and wrote a book in the seventies called "The Emerging Republican Majority" I think he is very unhappy with the current state of the party.

Nixon. For all his pettiness and evil, he was a supremely skilled politician. Ugly, but one who could forge an attraction time after time. You may not have liked the man, but you have to admire his ability to manipulate the electorate and the party.

Rick Perlstein did a book on his political run called Nixonland. He is a complex Shakespearean villian. Perlstein has a book about the rise of Reagan. Perlstein is a left wing historian who writes about the rise of the Right. His latest book on the rise of Reagan is called "the Invisible Bridge".

You conflate two things that ought not be conflated. What you call the invisible hand of Darwinian evolution, some might see as the invisible hand of God. Can you prove it's one and not the other? Smith's invisible hand to him comes from an organic source, to others it may be directed from a deity, who's to say for certain to whom or what the invisible hand belongs?

These are good points. And while we're at it, let's not forget that Smith's invisible hand may be directed by the ineluctable forces of Marxist History. We shouldn't omit any possibilities here.

I wasn't, but I don't see the discontinuity that you suggested in your original post. I think the idea of the invisible hand is an interesting construct to explain a self organizing process. We can choose the origin of our hand if we like, unless/until it's testable and provable we have to allow some wiggle room.

I guess my objection is Occam's Razor: until you have evidence to the contrary, why not assume that the source of organization is the same in both cases? But yes, point taken...

But surely in Smith's case the 'invisible hand' is not a hypothesis about the source of organization or an explanatory theory of the organization. It's an image to capture the kind of organization - organization that looks like the kind of thing a person (i.e. someone with a hand) might arrive it, if they were using that hand to arrange things.

Simon wrote: "But surely in Smith's case the 'invisible hand' is not a hypothesis about the source of organization or an explanatory theory of the organization. It's an image to capture the kind of organization ..."

But isn't this just what's so odd? As you say, a person who believes Smith's analysis will indeed argue that the 'invisible hand' of the market is no more than a useful image. So why are they often so insistent that the invisible hand of evolution must be a literal hand that belongs to Someone?

Yup, spontaenous order of living organisms and spontaneous order of the economic actions of human beings are two aspects of the natural world.

And, despite the fact that human beings are living organisms, they have nothing in common! I can see that's a valid counterargument.

Sounds like Human Action may be the book for you. GOP is Democrat lite. Neither makes any sense.

It does indeed sound interesting! I'll see if I can find a copy.

Y'all are aware that Ayn Rand was a staunch atheist? So all the whining about the theistic American right is just a red herring. Sure they are hypocrites for not accepting atheism, but that does not detract from this great book or Rand's philosophical ideas. So, I recommend actually reading it instead of all the folks who 'rate and review' on hearsay and triggered feelings.

I have so read Atlas Shrugged! I even tried to persuade my girlfriend to read it, but she started feeling unaccountably ill halfway down page 1.

Atlas Shrugged is my favorite!! Are you a Libertarian? ;) I was trying to get my husband to read it, but he can't get past the first few pages, Sigh.

be sure to read this expose about the manipulation of this text

https://www.the-tls.co.uk/articles/fi...

What's the invisible hand of Darwin?

You mix right-wing with Republican. Right-wing just means capitalist.

Yes.

OK, nice political commentary but what did you think about the book itself?