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Jon Nakapalau's Reviews > The Wealth of Nations
The Wealth of Nations
by
by
Jon Nakapalau's review
bookshelves: business, classics, cultural-studies, favorites, history, management, law, philosophy, politics, sociology, war, us-history
Feb 07, 2018
bookshelves: business, classics, cultural-studies, favorites, history, management, law, philosophy, politics, sociology, war, us-history
One of the hardest books I have ever read - I feel overwhelmed as far as the concepts - so I will just make a general comment: If you want to understand the foundational concepts of economic policy and have the perspective of a true genius then this book is for you. It is SCARY how many situations Adam Smith predicted - and it is sad how little things have changed as far as the wealthy and the poor. If you read this book and Das Capital I would argue that you will be able to hold your own as far as any 'laymen arguments' that are so often touted by the media. Took me 5 years to get through this book - but it was worth it.
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Quotes Jon Liked
“The privileges of the clergy in those ancient times (which to us, who live in the present times, appear the most absurd), their total exemption from the secular jurisdiction, for example, or what in England was called the benefit of clergy, were the natural, or rather the necessary, consequences of this state of things. How dangerous must it have been for the sovereign to attempt to punish a clergyman for any crime whatever, if his order were disposed to protect him, and to represent either the proof as insufficient for convicting so holy a man, or the punishment as too severe to be inflicted upon one whose person had been rendered sacred by religion? The sovereign could, in such circumstances, do no better than leave him to be tried by the ecclesiastical courts, who, for the honour of their own order, were interested to restrain, as much as possible, every member of it from committing enormous crimes, or even from giving occasion to such gross scandal as might disgust the minds of the people.”
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
“Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production”
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
“The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities.”
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
― An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Reading Progress
January 7, 2013
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Started Reading
February 7, 2018
– Shelved
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
business
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
classics
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
cultural-studies
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
favorites
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
history
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
law
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
management
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
philosophy
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
politics
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
sociology
February 7, 2018
– Shelved as:
war
February 7, 2018
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Finished Reading
January 25, 2019
– Shelved as:
us-history
Comments Showing 1-14 of 14 (14 new)
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Great observations Patrick! First off let me say I am not an 'economics' guy - the math involved is a locked door for me that I will never have a key to open.
Kapital was very much a digressive compartmentalization of the ills that were not being treated by the 'surgeons' of industry who wanted the sick to still pay their 'bills' even as they became sicker; from that perspective it was more a diagnosis of said sickness.
WoN (to me) was a prognosis for the continuation of a body that was 'healthy' and would become even more so as the principles were followed.
Of course the question becomes one of application: any theoretical principle can be both seed and harvest - but the people must tend to it if a bountiful result at end of season is expected.
I see questions that need to be looked at in both books - and for that reason I am glad to have read both.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment!
Jon,Thanks for your reply and compliment.
I can appreciate that economics may be difficult for you - I have met many who have told me the same. But what Math was involved in any of Wealth of Nations? Yes, mainstream economics classes these days have lots of math. But that is to their detriment and that is NOT what economics is really all about. Adam Smith's book is much more real economics than the more recent books with math.
I highly recommend your trying out some other economists who put little to no math in their brilliant economics writings such as:
Frederick Bastiat - Some great little essays: "The Seen and the Unseen," "The Broken Window" "The Candlemakers Petition." "The Law" is a good little basic book too about law and government.
Carl Menger - Principles of Economics
Eugen Bohm-Bawerk - Shorter Classics
Ludwig Mises - Bureaucracy
Omnipotent Government,
Socialism,
Liberalism,
Interventionism,
Theory and History,
And if you are up to his greatest work, try his "Human Action" possibly the very best book of the 20th century, but difficult.
That's the MUST-READ then! 🙌👍😍
Thank you Patrick and Parmida!
Glad to see you are a Hayek fan. He's very good.... and NO math.
Yes, it is important to mention just what a monumental effort it takes to get through this thing. It is incredibly LONGWINDED, and he goes on for paragraphs is some places seemingly talking in circles while describing concepts I've seen summed up in a sentence or two. Perhaps it was harder back then because he was detailing concepts that had never been put to paper before. Regardless, if you're not reading an abdicated version, which I didn't do, you're unnecessarily wasting valuable time on earth. It can not be described as entertaining by any stretch of the imagination and if you're seeking knowledge, there are much more economic ways of utilizing your time. I'd say this book is really only for peopling doing a PhD.
I read this some years ago. My reviewhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
and my favorite quote:
"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”
At the time 2017, " globalization" was a big political word as if it was something new. A. Smith makes it abundantly clear that globalization was a at work as far back as before the American Revolution.
Read your review - excellent!
Jon wrote: "Read your review - excellent!"Hardly as concise as yours.
Thanks for taking the time to read it.
Congratulations on finishing this important, long and foundational book. If you are up for a beautiful, highly readable and revolutionary update of the science of economics in a MUCH shorter book from 1871, I highly recommend "The Principles of Economics" by Carl Menger. This book corrected the key error of Smith and the other classical economists that allowed Marx to "exploit" their labor theory of value, and served for the best and most devastating critique of socialism.
Thank you Patrick and David - think it is so important we all try to understand politics better before the 2024 elections!
Absolutely!!!But remember, there have been some huge updates/improvements on Adam Smith's ideas since.
David Ricardo - law of comparative advantage
Carl Menger - subjective marginal value (vs. labor theory of value that Karl Marx's worked into his horrendous other ideas on "exploitation" "class war" envy and many other pernicious writings.
Ludwig Mises - clarity on using marginal value analysis on money and many other topics.
There are certainly parts of this book that were very obscure and difficult - I'm thinking of the long (`70 pp) "Digression on Silver" and a few other parts. And the sheer length of the book (700+ pp) is certainly intimidating.
But I wonder if you really had difficulty on some of the most important parts of the book, such as the very beginning when Smith describes the key principle of the division of labor, with the example of the pin factory's massive increase in productivity vs. the isolated meager production of individuals making pins all on their own?
I must admit too, that when I read the book originally, I had a professor helping me get through it, with good questions, fun conversations and strong encouragement to finish before the end of the term. The second time I read it was with the company of about 5-6 others who had never read it and loved discussing great books as we progressed. So the 5-7 meetings with them really made it much easier to digest difficult sections of the book.
Your comparison of Wealth of Nations with Das Kapital also intrigues me, since indeed, they are both crucial books to understand two very different systems of organizing society: capitalism vs. socialism. However all the people I respect who have read Kapital and Wealth of Nations have reported that the former has the most turgid prose and convoluted logic, whereas Wealth of Nations is written in an incredibly fluid, descriptive, beautiful style (mostly) and the logic hangs together quite well (mostly). Did you really find otherwise?