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Richard Fulgham's Reviews > An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
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"The Wealth of Nations" is the book that changed greed to a virtue instead of a sin.
In fact, greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian theology. Greed is a sin in ALL the great religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Buddhism, American Indian Spiritualism, Wiccan nature love, Bahá'í Faith, Gnosticism · · Rastafari,Samaritanism, Indian Ayyavazhi, Jainism, Sikhism Iranian Ahl-e Haqq, Manichaeism, Mazdak, Yazidi,Zoroastrianism, East Asian Confucianism, Taoism,Recent Cao Dai,Chondogyo, Neopaganism, New Age, Seicho-No-Ie, Tenrikyo, Unitarian Universalism Ethnic/Folk African, Ancient religions, Prehistoric Near East Egyptian, Semitic, Mesopotamian
Indo-European Celtic, Germanic Illyro-thracian, Greek (Gnosticism · Neoplatonism), Mithraism, Vedic Hinduism . . . .
All these religions say greed is wrong. All these religions say you should not gather wealth at the expense of your neighbors. But this man Adam Smith says it is OK to do whatever is necessary to obtain wealth. Adam Smith says it is a good thing to allow your instinct toward selfishness to rule your life. He calls it Capitalism. And it works for a century or so before the robbed and disenfranchised revolt and kill off the greedy ones who rule society to their benefit.
Greed is the basis and essence of Capitalism, especially US Capitalism, in which every individual is guaranteed the "right to pursue happiness". Has anyone EVER questioned that? Why is more important to be happy than to know where you fit into the Grand Scheme? Why is more important to make money than to find and free your spirit? Look at any wealthy person who gained his or her wealth through competiton -do they have a healthy or unhealthy spirit?
In turning greed to virtue, Adam Smith has created an economic system that more accurately has been called "Social Darwinism". In other words, according to Smith, it is perfectly natural for the meanest, strongest, most clever individuals to gobble up so much capital that the great majority of people are left with crumbs.
The weakest of us "deserve" to be poor, according to Smith. The Bible and every civilized religion in the world disagree, saying greed is a sin because the individual chooses to be greedy even though he/she knows it will cause great shortages of money among the meek and powerless.
Capitalism therefore is a sin, not an acceptable economic system. So long as there exists a middle class nothing catastrophic should happen to the society embracing this sin. But right now the middleclass is disappearing in the USA (as it has in all empires), leaving only the few monsters at the top and everyone else in poverty.
Forgive me for reading and for using my mind to agree or disagree with the author. I know most of you are capitalist because you are citizens of the USA. I am frankly a disciple of Diogenes and believe we should all be free and enjoy life -- there is plenty to go around without getting into a harness and working yourself to death. Let's face it, communism would have worked if they'd killed off the hogs as they rose to power. There are always hogs in society -- it is the duty of society to keep them chained or jailed.
Adam Smith, to a real Christian, is Satan personified. How devious and clever to claim a sin is a virtue. I recommend reading this admittedly fascinating book because it is an explanation of why Rome, Great Britian, the Ottoman Empire, et al, in the end collapsed because of greed made a virtue.
Adam Smith eloquently and wittily pretends to be a friend to the common person. So does "Das Kapital" and "Mein Kampf".
I personally am not a communist, socialist nor capitalist. I'm absolutely a nobody and you can take that to your corrupt bank. I revel in the freedom of my mind! I am an old graybeard and have read a thousand books --I was cast out of the 20th Century for chastising lesser minds, indifferent minds. I have been driven mad -- but in that madness there has come a clarity. It is so bright and wonderful that I can see clearly what I could not see before.
I hope this will attract bitter diatribes (Webster: bitter and abusive writings) against me and my blanket condemnation of Adam Smith's dangerous book. That will mean that my words here have been read and considered. Is that too much to ask in this dispassionate world?
In fact, greed is one of the Seven Deadly Sins in Christian theology. Greed is a sin in ALL the great religions, including Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Buddhism, American Indian Spiritualism, Wiccan nature love, Bahá'í Faith, Gnosticism · · Rastafari,Samaritanism, Indian Ayyavazhi, Jainism, Sikhism Iranian Ahl-e Haqq, Manichaeism, Mazdak, Yazidi,Zoroastrianism, East Asian Confucianism, Taoism,Recent Cao Dai,Chondogyo, Neopaganism, New Age, Seicho-No-Ie, Tenrikyo, Unitarian Universalism Ethnic/Folk African, Ancient religions, Prehistoric Near East Egyptian, Semitic, Mesopotamian
Indo-European Celtic, Germanic Illyro-thracian, Greek (Gnosticism · Neoplatonism), Mithraism, Vedic Hinduism . . . .
All these religions say greed is wrong. All these religions say you should not gather wealth at the expense of your neighbors. But this man Adam Smith says it is OK to do whatever is necessary to obtain wealth. Adam Smith says it is a good thing to allow your instinct toward selfishness to rule your life. He calls it Capitalism. And it works for a century or so before the robbed and disenfranchised revolt and kill off the greedy ones who rule society to their benefit.
Greed is the basis and essence of Capitalism, especially US Capitalism, in which every individual is guaranteed the "right to pursue happiness". Has anyone EVER questioned that? Why is more important to be happy than to know where you fit into the Grand Scheme? Why is more important to make money than to find and free your spirit? Look at any wealthy person who gained his or her wealth through competiton -do they have a healthy or unhealthy spirit?
In turning greed to virtue, Adam Smith has created an economic system that more accurately has been called "Social Darwinism". In other words, according to Smith, it is perfectly natural for the meanest, strongest, most clever individuals to gobble up so much capital that the great majority of people are left with crumbs.
The weakest of us "deserve" to be poor, according to Smith. The Bible and every civilized religion in the world disagree, saying greed is a sin because the individual chooses to be greedy even though he/she knows it will cause great shortages of money among the meek and powerless.
Capitalism therefore is a sin, not an acceptable economic system. So long as there exists a middle class nothing catastrophic should happen to the society embracing this sin. But right now the middleclass is disappearing in the USA (as it has in all empires), leaving only the few monsters at the top and everyone else in poverty.
Forgive me for reading and for using my mind to agree or disagree with the author. I know most of you are capitalist because you are citizens of the USA. I am frankly a disciple of Diogenes and believe we should all be free and enjoy life -- there is plenty to go around without getting into a harness and working yourself to death. Let's face it, communism would have worked if they'd killed off the hogs as they rose to power. There are always hogs in society -- it is the duty of society to keep them chained or jailed.
Adam Smith, to a real Christian, is Satan personified. How devious and clever to claim a sin is a virtue. I recommend reading this admittedly fascinating book because it is an explanation of why Rome, Great Britian, the Ottoman Empire, et al, in the end collapsed because of greed made a virtue.
Adam Smith eloquently and wittily pretends to be a friend to the common person. So does "Das Kapital" and "Mein Kampf".
I personally am not a communist, socialist nor capitalist. I'm absolutely a nobody and you can take that to your corrupt bank. I revel in the freedom of my mind! I am an old graybeard and have read a thousand books --I was cast out of the 20th Century for chastising lesser minds, indifferent minds. I have been driven mad -- but in that madness there has come a clarity. It is so bright and wonderful that I can see clearly what I could not see before.
I hope this will attract bitter diatribes (Webster: bitter and abusive writings) against me and my blanket condemnation of Adam Smith's dangerous book. That will mean that my words here have been read and considered. Is that too much to ask in this dispassionate world?
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Richard
(last edited Apr 22, 2009 03:33PM)
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rated it 1 star
Apr 22, 2009 06:37AM
Oops - this is too long. My apologies. To be brief, Adam Smith sucks.
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I will try not to be bitter."This man Adam Smith says it is OK to do whatever is necessary to obtain wealth."
"The weakest of us "deserve" to be poor, according to Smith."
"According to Smith, it is perfectly natural for the meanest, strongest, most clever individuals to gobble up so much capital that the great majority of people are left with crumbs."
Smith did not say or think these things.
Some of the other religious/philosophical comments you made caused me initially to write a longer, more bitter and critical response but I later thought against it and edited this down just to say that you very much misunderstand and misrepresent Smith.
I suspect you are reacting to someone's second hand explanation. Read his book if you are interested in understanding him better. It is not so dangerous as all that.
Yeah, this doesn't sound like the Smith I read. Smith's legacy may have encouraged the views you rail against, but Smith himself would probably be deeply upset by that influence. Your complaints seem more directed against later "social-Darwinist" thinkers like Spencer.
Actually, when you read the book you will find that Smith encourages paying the laboring man in a way that is encouraging and gives incentive to work harder. That within itself goes against what this comment is suggesting, not to mention other aspects of the book that would support that Smith was for the common man getting bigger slice of the pie. At the time there was common to be collusion among business owners, although illegal frequently ignored or paid off, it was completely illegal and Not ignored to have laborers get together (i.e. unionize) and Smith thought this an injustice of sorts. It is relatively closed minded, I believe, to read this book and get from it that Smith was suggesting that each person should be greedy.
I'm sorry, I also find it hard to believe you have actually read this book. Smith continually reverts to the theme of the little guy being oppressed, held back and prevented by the rich and powerful of the day from fulfilling his true potential. He also called for the most vulnerable members of society to be looked after by the group. Pretty evil stuff, eh? The fact that many people have misquoted and misrepresented Smith's work is another matter.
I would second a previous comment. It doesn't seem that you've read the book, or didn't give it a close enough read.
You clearly haven't read this or Moral Sentiments. He never says anything of the like. Smith was an economist, not a politician.
Smith does not advocate self-interest to the detriment of others, he advises producing a good or service that is of benefit to others that thereby they are enriched through the purchase of it and you are benefitted through that purchase.
It's difficult to tell from this review whether the reviewer actually read this book. I recently tried to read it, but had had too little sleep to handle such heavy reading. Therefore, I can comment only on the review and what it suggests about the man who wrote it.The list of world religions cited as opposing greed is so long that it ultimately serves to depict Mr. Fulgham as a know-it-all on the immaterial topic of what world religions there are, rather than to buttress the point that greed is wrong.
He says, "Look at any wealthy person who gained his or her wealth through competition--do they have a healthy or unhealthy spirit?" I don't know the answer to that, because I haven't talked to most wealthy individuals, but whether any of them has a "healthy spirit" is frankly not for Fulgham to decide, nor me, nor anyone but themselves.
Fulgham believes "communism would have worked if they'd killed off the hogs as they rose to power." I don't think he understands that there is some amount of "hog" in everyone, certainly in all of the Bolshevik leaders and certainly in Marx (study him and you'll notice that he was full of violent rage, among other issues); so killing off the hogs would probably have meant the Bolsheviks killing themselves and their entire revolution. They were hogs from the beginning.
Finally, the review is pompous, condescending ("forgive me for reading and for using my mind to agree or disagree") and rude, repeatedly and unnecessarily insulting the reader ("corrupt," "lesser minds, indifferent minds," "dispassionate").
Fulgham's most puzzling statement is "I have been driven mad -- but in that madness there has come a clarity. It is so bright and wonderful that I can see clearly what I could not see before." Considering that the entire review is a rant, I wonder whether Fulgham had had some sort of nervous breakdown, which the above quotation would be alluding to.
Without the self interest Smith identifies Mr. Fulgham would not likely have the benefit of the glasses he reads with and a computer to share his thoughts.
I have not read this book, though I intend to, soon as I finish reading The Bible King James version and Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire... so.. maybe in a couple of years? I enjoyed this review however, whether it is accurate in its critique upon the book isn't important to me, I like the personality of the critic which it reveals, it's bitterness towards a cold modern world, it's longing for something better. It makes me happy and hopeful when I come across someone who still is full of hopes and dreams and sees the ugliness that surrounds our modern society.
The idealism is inappropriate if it distorts the truth about this book.
Don Incognito wrote: "The idealism is inappropriate if it distorts the truth about this book."This isn't a professional review, so let's not get carried away here in terms of ascribing appropriateness to what is essentially just the reactions of an individual to something they have read, which they have been motivated enough to post in a public forum. So many people don't bother to write anything after reading things on here and I think a persons reaction to a book is generally going to be highly individualised and subjective to begin with - again, these aren't meant as professional critiques, but little personal opinions. I don't understand why people get so up in arms when a book they enjoy doesn't have the same positive effect upon another person, shouldn't you take pride in knowing that your tastes aren't the tastes of all people? Wouldn't it be extremely bland if that were the case? Likewise, wouldn't it be unfortunate if instead of presenting us with an emotional reaction to this book, we had just been presented with yet another 'summarizing review', you know, those tedious reviews in which the writer has little personal perspective to shine upon the subject and only seeks to present in brief the major subjects of the book in question. I love these very personal reactions, emotionally charged, not striving for perfect consistency or even accuracy, they provide such a great insight into the person writing them and this is worth so much more to me than a banal review which I can be better off obtaining through a wikipedia entry anyhow.
Your attitude toward evaluating the books and reviews seems to be highly subjective, or highly accepting of subjectivism; mine is not, so I guess we must agree to disagree.
Yeah, but unlike religions, this book doesn't speak of fictions.
Absolute nonsense. You have quite obviously never read Adam Smith's book, and if you did, you did not manage to imbibe any of it.Smith did not praise greed and selfishness at all. He had already deduced in his "Theory of Moral Sentiments' that man is a self-interested creature, elaborating on this on the WoN when he says it is only a beggar that appeals to others benevolence alone to sustain themselves (this says something about how effective philanthropy is).
Anyway, Smith's point wasn't that self-interest is good or bad, it was that he accepted its primary influence as a principle, and then worked to illustrate the ideal institutional arrangement to harness this natural human propensity, and to use it to create wealth that benefits all. Nor was Smith above promoting the welfare of the poor, which he did quite regularly.
All in all: your review is blinkered, inaccurate, propagandistic and downright idiotic.
Wealth of Nations is right up there with the Bible and Marx's Capital as books people never read but always have an opinion on. Might have to write a review of my own to dilute all the morons that haven't really read the book, but want to look like they have. (Btw without Smith there is no Ricardo, and without Ricardo, no Marx - yet he is somehow the founder of 'Social Darwinism'? Please, your ire would be far better aimed at the likes of Malthus + Herbert Spencer if you want to criticise this kind of view.
Yeah, got me! I'm a little nuts and sometimes do things just to cause an interesting reaction. Like Norman Mailer used to do, though I'm not comparing myself to him in any other way. No, I haven't read "Wealth of Nations" and I was having one of my "crazy spells" where I just blather to get people riled up. I don't know why. At any rate, my very sincere apologies and I promise not to do this again. I don't think I should be kicked out or anything that drastic, afterall I confessed. Please see my review of Bergson's "Creative Evolution" to see what I can do along serious academic lines. This was an abberation of my usually deductive reasoning power in intrepreting literary works. I shan't do it again, gentlemen.
bowleaf wrote: "I enjoyed this review however, whether it is accurate in its critique upon the book isn't important to me, I like the personality of the critic which it reveals, it's bitterness towards a cold modern world, it's longing for something better. It makes me happy and hopeful when I come across someone who still is full of hopes and dreams and sees the ugliness that surrounds our modern society....MR. BOWLEAF UNDERSTANDS MY POSITION EXACTLY.
It's quite annoying that one who hasn't read a book feels inclined to write a review and give it one star. I guess no system is perfect.
Quite. Economics is a bad religion not a science.
The word Capitalism does not appear in Smith's work. And neither does Smith defend Greed. He does explain that the common attention to self-interest, when directed into trade and not theft, has beneficial effects for society.I could go on, but this review is unlearned and unthinking, a mere parroting of bigotries cultivated by anti-market thinkers (conservatives, protectionists, socialists, fascists, and "progressives") for the last two centuries. Disgraceful.
Smith never said that!
What a sad life must this man have had...
Someone DIDN'T read the book. It specfically states that extraordinary profits by the so-called "masters" (business owners) leads to economic trouble through complacency and a lack of innovation and even goex as far as influencing the market through politics for their own gain, despite it being counterproductive to economies as a whole.
Read the book before posting a bitter review. Where is your intellectual honesty?
Ah, yes, wanting to keep one's well deserved money is greed, wanting to steal another's well deserved money for some lofty ideal is a benevolence! What a sham review on a book on economics first and foremost.
Brilliant review of the ''The Wealth of Nations''... Thank you.... If you ever run for office in Canada, I will happily give you my vote.... Please consider that.... Infinite blessings to you.........................
you are not really comenting on the book. What you say is not really the matter. How is the book?
Interesting -- all valid thoughts, what do you propose instead?
Mr. Fulgham, you have to read this book. It has given me a better understanding of so much of the world. I wish my high school teachers had not been so dismissive of a book they had never read themselves, then I might have been able to experience it earlier in my life.
It's actually not about greed; Smith was generous with his wealth and said in the book he didn't like some of the greedy businessmen. It's about what works for society, and he simply noted that their greed forces them to do good for others. Communism is profoundly anti-Christian, and not only in that it condemns Christianity as standing in the way of their utopian vision. It also looks at the world in a purely materialistic way, while Christianity pulls us in the opposite direction. The poor will always be with us, Jesus said, and it's our moral duty to help them out of our own pockets, voluntarily, rather than robbing from your wealthy neighbors. "Kill the hogs," isn't that what you said? Doesn't sound very Christian to me. It seems in your obsession over greed, you have forgotten about envy. If you were truly a disciple of Diogenes, you would accept your crumbs and be happy with them. Not that I'd advocate that. Thankfully there is plenty of room to be successful in this world, largely due to capitalism, though it is under siege. If we allowed the invisible hand to truly work its magic, we'd all be a lot more well off. But people like you think you know better than the combined decision-making of the entire globe, also known as the market, and so you poke and prod and try to control it, but it only ever produces worse results for everyone. If you were paying attention to Smith's wisdom, you would know this.
So you didn't read the book?
In book 3 Smith argued that money is worthless on its own and only useful to facilitate trade, that the amount a nation produces should be the means by which we measure its wealth not by gold. For this weekend reason, and many others, he criticizes colonialism. Book 3 also mentions that the higher the profits for a firm the less productive the economy will be, and therefore making greed bad; firms would, ideally, use their money in other, more important ways. Do we even read the same book?
Ok. But ... Did you actually read the book?
