a canucks follow-up and adam smith

before I start this post, I just want to quickly address the comments that were left on wednesday's blog. Just for clarification, I wasn't criticizing the support of the Canucks, but merely asking why we do not offer up the same passionate zeal towards other causes. Thanks for all who shared their views - they were interesting to read!

moving on.

I've been thinking about adam smith. no, not some random adam smith, but THE adam smith of wealth of nations fame. previous to my political economy to communications class, I had always associated smith with, as many of you do undoubtedly, the invisible hand of the market. I understoof him to be the father of modern laissez-faire economics, who believed in skill, dexterity and judgment being the basis of wealth. frankly, I didn't particularly view him in any form to be humanist...to me, he was all about the bottom line.

I was reading Freakonomics yesterday (just finished, but I read it out of order), and Levitt brought up something about Smith that I learned in class: his theory of moral sentiments. at the time, I was quite surprised - smith, as a philosopher (there were no "economists" yet) also wrote about the inherent good of human beings!
He addressed the following points in Moral Sentiments:

• Humans must have a responsibility over others
• People must understand each other as human
• Putting someone before oneself would lead to perfection of nature
• Principle of wealth should not be put in front of well-being of people

As these thoughts entered my mind again, I wanted to share them with you...who would have known that the father of modern economics had such a humanistic outlook on society? I think this brings much needed balance to neoliberal economics...