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It's worth noting that Adam Smith was imagining an economy in which most market actors were small proprietors, a nontrivial minority were living self-sufficient
by eli_gottlieb 10y ago
It's worth noting that Adam Smith was imagining an economy in which most market actors were small proprietors, a nontrivial minority were living self-sufficient lives, and very few were wage-laborers.
And then Enclosure happened -- precisely to create a landless "working class" who could not participate in the market as free actors!
https://newrepublic.com/article/141663/united-states-work https://newrepublic.com/article/141663/united-states-work
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/yasha-levine-recovered-economic-history-everyone-but-an-idiot-knows-that-the-lower-classes-must-be-kept-poor-or-they-will-never-be-industrious.html http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/04/yasha-levine-recovere...
- prostoalex 10y ago> It's worth noting that Adam Smith was imagining an economy in which most market actors were small proprietors Is that a fair interpretation of Smith's work? The concept of economies of scale (dated back to Adam Smith) combined with laissez-faire approach advocated by Smith seems to imply a large corporate endeavor (Sears catalog, Wal-Mart, Costco, Amazon.com) would inevitably overpower any small-scale operation.
- kesselvon 10y agoCould Smith have imagined huge multinational corporations in a time where economics was strictly mercantilist?
- existencebox 10y agoJust to chime in: the east india company was already a significant force by the mid-late 1700's, so yes, I do believe he had some image of the potential power of multinationals/megacorps.