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Adam Smith On Conceit, Central Planning, And Disorderly Society
Perhaps it is worth a reminder that, while every effort by the Central-Banker-In-Chief and his political play-things to proclaim free-market omnipotence in stark contrast to the wholesale manipulation of any and every market and macro-economic lever possible, Adam Smith some 250 years ago pointed out the inevitable unintended consequences of such grand conceit. As the [central planner] seems to "imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board", the end result is that "society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."
"The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.
He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might choose to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful.
If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."
Adam Smith 1723-1790
(h/t Ralph C)
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just like a real alcoholic.
(or a control freak).
Or both.
"Don't tread on me" was the 2nd in line to be our flag. Why to "they" persist in bothering the Americans? Are we not a good citizens as "it" stands right now? Or do we just need fewer countries and the worthless people who inhabit these wothless places to remind them that the world is better without your people's existence? I just can't believe what PUSSIES this nation has become. Of course if all the PTB wish to confer is that citizenship has no bearing in our New Normal...by all means phuckers...excercise your right to Free Speech and AND TELL THE TRUTH you meeleeee mouthed Harvard phucks.
Humans are susceptible to this 'centralization' error, because they don't understand emergent order.
Any human who's ever walked through an ecosystem has seen an extremely complex adaptive system that functions beautifully without any central decision maker.
Usually they ignore it and say "Well, that's just how things are."
Yeah, well, try to 'govern' a system like that, and in 20 years you'll turn a climax forest into a Martian desert.
... and it took millions of years to do that, and the process necessarily involved the premature deaths of gazillions of organisms.
I wonder if that represents an acceptable way to run a society, for us as human beings? Should we employ the frontal lobes (that nature gave us), or is it more natural to lobotomize them?
For example the Bhopal incident - maybe we should see this as an evolutionary step forward both for the gas-resistance of human beings, and the litigation-resistance of corporations, in the very-long-term trend toward a more robust economy.
Of course, the extinction of Homo sapiens is very much on the table in this way of doing things, although, holding unfettered natural selection in such high regard as we do, this outcome is not only acceptable, it's to be commended.
Any other thoughts as to how evolutionary biology can inform our social organization will be greatly appreciated.
Misunderstanding.
Ecology is example of complex system -- similar to economy, and just as uncontrollable from single central authority / government / consciousness.
Complex adaptive systems like that just keep getting more complex. Central authority can only control by deliberately simplifying. In ecology you get simple monoculture, sprayed with pesticides. In economy you get theft, gross inefficiencies, gulags.
In economy, we still get to use our collective central lobes, but not to 'control'. Only to enforce simple unchanging ground rules. i.e. 'no force allowed' & 'no fraud allowed'. Definitely not to attempt fine tuning like 'must have lower interest rates.'
One way you get occasional suffering, but overall perpetual improvement. Other way you get appearance of improvement briefly, then rapidly increasing systemic stress, great suffering, finally systemic failure / simplification / extinction.
It's ironic, but the chess analogy actually demonstrates that the best outcomes are achieved by coordination, determined by a central entity. That should be obvious a priori anyway. There are in fact conflicting interests on the chess board, and there will be conflicting interests in society regardless of whether or not there is a coordinated central plan.
In other aspects of life we haven't surrendered our ability to impose order on the chaos of our environments, but perhaps through economics, this time it will be different (lol).
Actually order is going to be imposed by powerful, self-interested central entities whether we like it or not, and the "free market" capitalist system is a rather good, current example.
But do we want representation? It's interesting that this question still needs to be asked 250 years on.
The majority of the people in Congress are there to serve themselves and Big Business whenever possible. Until We The People do something about that, nothing will ever change.
Until we free ourselves from the Rothschilds Criminal Colonial Empire NOTHING WILL CHANGE. Who do you think congress works for?
I agree -- and add that only way to do that is to re-take control of our money.
That is at center of all power.
Corrupted money is the root of all evil.
1913, 1933, 1965, 1971
The vast majority of Congress definitely works for Rockefeller & Rothschild, Inc. I wish Zerohedge could throw a little more light on that recent alliance those two formed.
The mass of men want peace and security and are willing to respect the rights of their neighbors. Let them voluntarily organize a system which teaches the rights of the individual and protects those rights through a market driven system of security and adjudication. In this way individuals can chose to support those who consistently uphold individual rights rather than being compelled to support one elite huckster or another who holds tenure by virtue of violence upon the people. What's not to like?
The trouble anarchists face is that most folks have very strong opinions about how other people should be forced to live, lip-service to liberty notwithstanding.
I am a voluntarist with a personal preference for anarchy. If some individuals are willing to give up their rights and live under a system which gives them some input on limiting the rights of other then I have no problem with that. I will chose to associate with those who stand up for their own individual sovereignty and who recognize that giving others the same consideration reinforces one's own independence.
I'm with ya. It's spreading the message that's so difficult.
Almost everyone says they support liberty right up until someone they'll never met does something that causes a strong emotional response. Then it's, "That can't be allowed to happen!"
Conversations often come to a screeching halt when you ask, "Why not?"
http://maxkeiser.com/2012/07/22/on-edge-gerald-celente/
Didn't click the link. But let me guess what happened:
-Max looked into the camera with that psychotic glare of his
-Gerald told us it's going to get really ugly soon (for about the 1,000,000th time)
-Stacy needs a haircut
Did I get it right?
"Did I get it right?"
Oh, definitely, if you are primarily concerned with the inane, inconsequential superficial matters of absolutely no consequence. You nailed it!
Thanks. I tried to use this time to discuss something more consequential than Adam Smith's thoughts on central planning.
Maybe when Dodd-Frank is replaced by The Wealth of Nations, you will be onto something.
Let's be honest, we watch Max and Gerald because main stream media is 100% hollywood lies, and they're only 50% lies.
Greenie? I guess?
I mean if you are living in America and think that somehow Russia Today is your friend, you are a dumbfuck. I understand your disdain for CNN, but come on now - RT ain't your buddy.
In a predatory world nobody is your buddy. Got that yet?
£13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/21/global-elite-tax-offshore...
"the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."
Adam Smith 1723-1790
Yup !
I guess The Bernank will print when he feels he has to. This guest post earlier today was REALLY good and it reminded me that the Countries that we are in debt to don't want to see us print any more money regardless of what we think.
It reminds me of that "mystery missle" off the southern California coast which the Pentagon said was a plane. The fact that a missile...er...plane made the news right as we were embarking on QE2 is strictly a coincidence I am certain...
`Pardon the rant....
It's not easy for young people to swim against the grain. What real evidence are they exposed to that proves the game is rigged? Probably harder for them than it even was for us.
I'm trying to enlighten my 17 year old while her mother "grooms" her to be a doctor.
I think the first red flag for many of us could have been going into debt for those first two years of the university experience. You know... those first two years where you pay to learn the same shit you passed in high school?
It's at that point where the criminals have our youth cornered. Think about it. In debt, desperate to get moving into their career choice, and willing to take on even more debt to realize the dream..... Being herded toward the finish line, and constantly being told success lies just beyond that walk across the stage.
So just keep marching and everything will work out... and if you don't follow the plan you'll be a complete failure.
I echo CD, as these thoughts are sinfully incomplete, but I'm too lazy to write a book.
It's ok dude. I see your heart as being the right place.
I guess the question is whether you are gonna write that book - and if it did, would it matter - or is this Katy Perry video going to rule the night.
'Cuz Katy's up on you. And I greened you too!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGJuMBdaqIw
Fuckin A
Fuckin B...
I go to work only so that I can pay my property tax. They use that tax money to pay for public brainwashing schools, where my neighbors kids will attend and then be tricked into joining the military. The military will then send them to some other country where they will kill some poor persons kids in order that some rich kids whose father never worked a day in his life can make even more money than he already has, even though he has 10,000 times more than the father of the children that were murdered. Then when my neighbors kids get back to the states they will shoot themselves in the head and bleed to death out in the field next to my house.
Where would we be without the military banking complex and their goons stoping people from excercising their right to free speech and the right to assemble?
God forbid we should have freedom, rights, liberty, the right to own property without tax and an honest monetary system that supports an economy with jobs so that children have another choice besides joining the psycho military.
Shame on those that enable this insane system of murder, slavery and poverty that benefits the .001%.
I hope the asteroids come once more to wipe the slate clean. So twisted is this world that even an honest man feels shameful to live.
The man who can not earn a living for himself is something less than a man. The man who can barely get a living and no more is a little better than a barbarian or a savage.
"All wealth comes from labor applied to land," said Adam Smith.
Elbert Hubbard, "Let Thrift Be Your Ruling Habit."
"Let Thrift Be Your Ruling Habit."
In the consumer age that is heresy!
Just look at this BI article on a hot subject about consumerista mania now attributed to women :
Women Turning Their Backs On Men Who Disappoint Them In Bed - Business Insider
You can imagine that woman thinking to herself : "I want it all and I want it now!"
And the guy thinking : "There goes my thrift and save plan!"
BTW : the woman turning her back on her man heading of article does construe a double connotation; and I'm being tongue in cheek!
You need not reject women, falak, but you must deny them your essence.
(This isn't the trouble with Greece, is it?)
Ask Papadopoulos, he sounds more greek than moussaka.
From Alexander Hamilton on to the present, greed never rests.
http://www.corbettreport.com/how-to-carve-up-the-world-video/
So you say you want to rule the world? Redraw the map to conform to your whims and move pieces around the geopolitical chessboard for your entertainment? Well this week on The Corbett Report we show you just how to do that, with some useful examples from the War to End All Wars…or was that the Peace to End All Peace?
So who is shorting Netflix this Tuesday?
Adam Smith?
Adam Effin Smith!?!!
that guy owes me money.
The enabler always denies culpability for aiding and abetting the dysfunctional.
Pity Adam Smith had nothing important to say on neo-feudalism and oligarchy scam.
Imposed from above, rammed down people's throats like the Pope's baton or churned and screwed tight on their broken backs nailed to the king's rack.
Central planning is a tool for any fool who thinks he's cool and pretends he is doing God's work.
25 T sitting prettty in tax havens and the world burns. I wonder what Adam's apple would say to that!
"It's all the fault of Eve!...YOU don't deserve to be in the Caymans. Only the happy few, who understand me, Adam Smith, truly and my mate Ricardo!"
Oh Ricardo, whither comparitive advantage leads, to Shangrila or to Dante's Inferno?
In fact when you come to think of it who INVENTED central planning in the first place?
Just read religious history! It was GOD and his messenger Abraham. And all "divine" rulers followed in his footsteps: Caesar, Charlemagne, theocratic Popes, Charles V, Louis XIV, Napoleon,... Stalin, Mao (historical determinism god) and now Pax Americana.
So blame it all on HIM folks; blame it all on he who created Eve and GILDA! "Put the blame on Mame!"
Gilda (1946)
What profit hath a man of all his labor which he taketh under the sun?
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Bow hunting is very satisfying though...
I wonder what would happen if motorists were free to drive on the road as they pleased, left or right side, 0 or 200 mph, drunk or not - I mean, free to follow their own star - if the net result would be greater or less happiness/harmony/order?
Adam Smith, can you help us out here? Especially considering as how you're never one to be "very wise in your own conceit"?
That's pretty much how it works (irrespective of the laws/rules) in France, Italy, China, Indonesia (and some other places which I've forgotten). They seem pretty happy -- and have a far lower road toll per capita than the US!
A town in Holland even removed all traffic lights and saw a reduction in traffic accidents!!
Custom precedes laws, anyway. People are innately more sensible and self-organising than you give them credit for.
Everyone MUST live in SUBURBIA, where the government can tax and control every aspect of existence.
In SUBURBIA there is no thought, only commands.
This is the new (im)moral imperative.
SUBURBIA hmmm.....the houses today remind me of headstones in cemetaries.
Actually that's exactly how people drove 20 years ago in India when I was there and the streets were very crowded. Never witnessed an accident and the Holy cows trotted around with nary a worry.
I suggest we need some laws to prevent unqualified people from posting comments, with maybe a fine or imprisonment for infrigement. After all, think of the damage that can be done.
Everything will be more orderly, people will have less conflict, leading to greater happiness.
we exist in an era of aristotelian economics...there has as of yet been no acknowledged newton...much less an einstein
Ironically, the cause of the current crisis isn't central planning but the opposite.
Wow, someone still at step 1.
I'm not sure you can call parroting propaganda a step - its more like the reflex of an otherwise empty mind. Regurgitation is done by some birds to feed their young - so too apparently for some human beings.
"The man of system, on the contrary, is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamored with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.
________________________
Lets check this for US citizens.
US citizens are those people who started by proclaimed freedom an unalienable human right, and kept slaves.
Maximum stretch endured and carried on, US citizens can not be told to be so enamoured with the supposed beauty of their own ideal plan of government, they can not suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it.
Conclusion: Smith's text is irrelevant to US citizens, who are the dominant force in the world.
Again, US citizens focusing on the smaller, weightless, non mattering bits instead of taking account of themselves.
Ananoymouse,
Why do you bother here? Who pays you? If we could understanding what in gods green earth you are typing we may be able to help you escape the communist regime in china. Is that what you want? Would you like a pass into the great US citeziniszms paradize? Is this what you want?
I can personally attest to be able to help you escape the path shitting future you and your kids dont deserve. You deserve a real shitter, like the ones in the great US citezenizmns have. Nobody should be reduced to shitting in the street like you filthy bastards do sometimes 3 times a day.
If you need mixxys help, just click on my name and your curb shitting days are over my slanty eyed, dog eating, one child, shit hole of a communist country, illegible transcript, utterly ill informed friend.
:-)
Dont worry about that, US citizenism is spreading in China so...
Really?
Send the fuckers back then you little tinker, just imagine what you're country could become if you followed US citezenizmmmms.
Just out of interest my little knee high, you all look the same, noodle eating, curb shitting,wiry haired, funny talking, empty cities, no idea what you may be typing, US citizenimsmxz loving friend, how much does the communist boss pay you for typing things we cant translate into English? I have tried, I even used google translate, but alas, it seems to have no effect on you're typing style.
Do you gat paid more than 3 ruppees a day? Or do they pay you in cocunut shells? Perhaps they stop whipping you after a certain ammount of bollock writing and then you go home to you're curb shitting ways with your life instead of money?
Do tell ZH has some interesting posters, I am sure you would rank in the top 100 if we could understand what the fuck you are jibber jabbering on about.
Thanks in advance mind, just like to see a greater perspective of world events like.
Q: How many Chinese Citizenism citizens does it take to change a light bulb?
A: None --- they would rather sit in the dark and blame the lack of light on self-created collectivistic boogyman fantasies such as 'US Citizenism'.
Confusedious say: lightbulb not needed to read computer screen.
Clash of Citizenisms
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1sce4JT4EQU
that Greece level looks pretty neat lol
magpie said:
Much the realisticality having graphicalisms of game playingness. Detailry possessing much attentiveness, roadside crappings the inclusioned.
Hump, I suppose you have another "ism" to save us all. Bugger off...
'Americans' need to be saved from 'Americanism'?
That is a piece of news. 'Americans' work at preserving 'Americanism' that is how it is.
Unfortunately for collectivists like yourself you are unable to see any person for what they actually are. A person. Your powers of comprehension are so weak that you are only able to think in generalities causing you to create false groupings of people into some demon you then rant about. Yes we have an evil lot running things but not just in America, the whole of the world is wrapped up in this.
"It's not left against right, it's YOU against the State" Ludwig von Mises
www.mises.org
wake up, it's time to choose the red or the blue pill
Alexander Pope was a favorite read for many in colonial America. No less than Geo. Washington was a fan. Pope in writing An Essay on Criticism wrote what became a hallmark of the era "A little knowledge is adangerous thing"
This attribution was a misqoute but none the less the quintessence of Pope's message. It's fons et origo doesn't end there however with other's, earlier than Pope, expressing the same sentiment.
AA, you should be proud in continuing to prove the utility of this famous quote.
The planners want a solution
So to military planners
and finacial planners
As I read this on my smart phone I wonder
Why did not AT&T when they had an the American telephone monopoly conceive of the internet
Why was their contribution only the requirement that you pay extra for every hard wired phone
in your house, despite the fact that all the phones (upstairs, downstairs and bedroom) all had the
same line and same phone #.
And zerox -- why didn't they expand from copiers to printers to desk tops to lap tops
Most inovative enterprises are soon taken over by the bean counters, by the price fixers, the political donars, the trade negotiators, the mini gestopo rule makers and keepers, the mini gestopo managers who realize that their pay will increase not by the # of new ideas, or procedures, but by the # of departments beneath them.
US Dream is gone. GOVT turned us into debt laden commie zombies.
Just close your eyes, cover your ears, and consume.
SP500 downleg expected to continue next week onwards.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2012-12-24/market-analysis