Saturday, March 19, 2011

Adam Smith, liberal

On businessmen:
"[F]or all they may talk of freedom and fairness, [they] 'generally have an interest to deceive and even oppress the public.'”
On progressive taxation:
"The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state."
On "big government:"
"Government has the duty of 'erecting and maintaining those public institutions and those public works which may be in the highest degree advantageous to a great society....'”
On full employment and high wages:
"What improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."
Das Capitalist - The American Conservative

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