POLITICAL THEORY - Adam Smith | The School of Life

Dictation 2020.07.25

Adam Smith is our guide to perhaps the most pressing dilemma of our time: how to make a capitalist economy more human, and
more meaningful. He was born in Scottland in Kirkcaldy, a small manufacturing town near Edingburgh, in 1723. He was a hard-
-working student, and very close to his mother. He then became an academic philosopher, wrote a major book about the import-
-ance of sympathy, and lectured on logic and aesthetics. 

He was also one of the greatest thinkers in the history economics, in part because his concerns went far beyond the economic.
He wanted to understand the money system, because his underlying ambition was to make nations and people happier. Smith
remains an invaluable to guide to four ideas:

1. Specialization
When one considers the modern word of work, two facts stand out: modern economies produced unprecedented amounts of wealth
and many ordinary people find work rather boring, and a key complaint -- meaningless. The two phenomena are in fact
intimately related, as Adam Smith was the first to understand through his theory of specialization.

He observed that in modern businesses, tasks formerly done by one person in a single day, could far more profitably be split
into many tasks, carried out by multiple people over whole careers. Smith hailed this is a momentous development. Hed 
predicted that national economies will become hugely richer, the more specialized their workforces became. One sign our 
world is now so rich, Smith could tell us, is that everytime we meet a stranger at a party, we are unlikely to understand
what they do. The mania for incomprehensible job titles like logistics supply manager, packaging coordinator, or communic-
-ations and learning officer prove the economic logic of Smith's insight.

But there is one special problem with specialization -- meaning. When businesses are small, and their processes contained,
a sense of helping others is readily available. But when everything is industrialized, one ends up as a tiny cog in a 
gigantic machine, whose overall logic is liable to be absent from the minds of people lower down organization. A company
with 150,000 employees distributed across four continents, making things that take five years from conception to delivery,
will struggle to maintain any sense of purpose or cohesion -- so Smith discerned that bosses of the specialized corporations
of modernity, have an extra responsibility to their workers, to remind them of their purpose, role, and ultimate dignity
of their labor.

2 (Consumer Capitalism)
Smith's age saw the development of what we now call consumer capitalism. Manufactuers began turning out luxury goods for
broadening middle class. Some commentators were appalled. The philosohper Jean Jacque Rousseau wished to ban luxury from
his native Geneva. He was a particular fan of ancient Sparta, and argued that his city should copy its austere martial
lifestyle. 

Disagreeing violently, Smith pointed out to the Swiss philosopher, that luxury consumerism in fact had a vey serious role
to play in a good society. It generated the surplus wealth that allowed societies to look after their weakest members. 
Consumer societies, despite their frivolity, didn't let young children and the old starve, for they could afford hospitals
and poor relief. 

So Smith defended consumer capitalism on the basis that it did more good for the poor, than societies devoted to high ideals.
That said, Smith held out some fascinating hopes for the future of capitalism. He didn't want to stay stuck at the frivo-
-lous level forever. He observed that humans have many higher needs that currently lie outside of capitalist enterprise.
Among them, our need for emotional education, for self-understanding, for beautiful cities, and for awarding social lives.
The hope for the future is that we'll learn to generate sizeable profits from helping people in truly important ambitious
ways.

Properly developed, capitalism shouldn't just service our basic material needs while it exciting to buy frivolous things.
It should make money from goods and services that deliver true fulfillment. 

3 How to treat the rich
Then as now, the great question was how to get the rich to behave well towards the rest of society. The Christian answer
to this was (to) make them feel guilty. Meanwhile, the radical left-wing answer was then and now, raise taxes.

But Smith disagreed with both approaches. The hearts of the rich were luckily to remain cold and high taxes will simply 
lead the rich to flee the country. He proposed, though contrary to what one might expect, it isn't money that the rich 
really care about -- It's honor and respect. The rich accumulate money, not because they are materially greedy, but 
primarily in order to be liked and approved of. 

So rather than taxing the rich, governments should understand the vanity at the heart of the rich, and their motivations.
They should therefore give the rich plenty of honors and status, in return for doing all the good things that these nar-
-cissists wouldn't normally bother with, like funding schools and hospitals and paying their workers well. As Smith put
it, "The great secret of educaiton is to direct vanity to proper objects."

4 Educate consumers
Big corporations feel very evil to us now the natural targets of blame for low paying jobs, environmental abuse and sick-
-ening ingredients. But Adam Smith knew that there was an unexpected and more important element responsible for these
ills -- our taste. It's not companies that primarily degrade the world. It's our appetites, which they merely serve.

As a result, the reform of capitalism hinges on an odd-sounding, but critical task: the education of the consumer. We need
to be taught to want better quality things, and pay a proper price for them, one that reflects the true burdens on workers
and the environment. A good capitalist society doesn't just offer customers choice, it also teaches people to exercises
choice in judicious ways. 

Capitalism can, Smith suggests, be saved by elevating the quality of consumer demand. 

The economic state of the world can seem at once so wrong, and yet so complicated. We end up collapsing into despair and
passivity. Adam Smith is on hand to lend us confidence and hope. His work's full ideas about how human values can be re-
-conciled with the needs of businesses. He deserves our ongoing intention, because he was interested in an issue that has
become a leading priority of our own times: how to create an economy that is at once profitable and civilized.  


aesthetics
英[i:s'θetɪks]美[ɛsˈθetɪks]
释义
n.
美学; 美术理论; 审美学; 美的哲学

Adam Smith
亚当·斯密[1]（英语：Adam Smith，1723年6月5日（受洗）（新历6月16日）－1790年7月17日），又译亚当·史密斯、亚当·史密夫，苏格兰哲学家和经济学家，他
所著的《国富论》成为了第一本试图阐述欧洲产业和商业发展历史的著作。这本书发展出了现代的经济学学科，也提供了现代自由贸易、资本主义和自由意志主义的理论
基础。被誉为经济学之父。

Kirkcaldy
柯科迪（英语：Kirkcaldy 聆听i/kərˈkɔːdi/ kər-KAW-dee；低地苏格兰语：Kirkcaldy，苏格兰盖尔语：Cair Chaladain）是一座位于苏格兰法夫的镇和
前皇家自治镇。柯科迪位于爱丁堡以北11.6英里（19千米），邓迪西南27.6英里（44千米） 。2011年人口普查时有49,709人，是法夫最大的人口聚居地。[2]其
昵称Lang Toun（关于这个音频文件 listen 帮助·信息；很长的镇）指的是镇上16、17世纪地图上可看到的0.9英里（1.4千米）长的主街，这条街的长度后来扩
展到4英里（6.4千米），甚至连接到了附近的自治镇上。原先独立的自治镇戴撒在1930年并入柯科迪。
柯科迪的人类居住史可以追溯到青铜时代。第一份提到此地的文献记录出现在1075年，当时马尔科姆三世准许在此地建立邓弗姆林修道院，大卫一世后来将此镇交给
了由教堂衍生出来的修道院，1327年罗伯特一世正式确认承认其自治镇地位。1644年查理一世授予其皇家自治镇的地位。
16世纪早期，柯科迪成为贸易重地，因而衍生了当地的制盐业、产煤业和制钉业。1672年出现亚麻制造业，该产业后来在19世纪中期成了镇子的支柱产业。1877年
开始生产油毡，产业重心由此转移。1950年代和60年代扩建，但因为油布生产业和其他产业衰退，其发展减缓。
柯科迪有众多娱乐场所，因而成为法夫地区的服务业中心。柯科迪亦是经济学家亚当·斯密的出生地以及其撰写名著《国富论》的地方

The Wealth of Nations
《国富论》（英语：The Wealth of Nations）全名为《国民财富的性质和原因的研究》

phenomena
英[fə'nɒmɪnə]美[fɪˈnɑmənə]
释义
n.
现象

cog
英[kɒɡ]美[kɑːɡ]
释义
n.
钝齿; 雄榫

discern
英[dɪˈsɜːn]美[dɪˈsɜːrn]
释义
vt.
看出; 理解，了解; 识别，辨别
vi.
辨明，分清

austere
英[ɒˈstɪə(r)]美[ɔˈstɪr]
释义
adj.
朴素的，简朴的; 严峻的，严厉的; 苦行的; 一丝不苟的

frivolity
英[frɪˈvɒləti]美[frɪˈvɑləti]
释义
n.
轻松的乐事，兴高采烈; 轻浮的举止

judicious
英[dʒuˈdɪʃəs]美[dʒuˈdɪʃəs]
释义
adj.
明智的; 有见识的; 判断正确的; 审慎的

on hand
英[ɔn hænd]美[ɑn hænd]
释义
在手边，在附近，在场; 现; 手头