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> Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? \aside: Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations has a story about men who worked themselves into

> Capitalism will make people stop working and be less productive? \aside: Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations has a story about men who worked themselves into the ground, because they were paid by-the-piece (not per hour). They needed to be protected from themselves. (The psychological mechanism wasn't speculated, but I suspect maybe competition rather than greed.)

jwestbury 3y ago
So Adam Smith was opposed to the gig economy, then?
- dontlaugh 3y ago
  Yes, because it’s yet another name for piece work without job security. He was also against landlords. He was much closer to what we’d today call a social democrat, not unlike Keynes.