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| Content | | | | On the Wealth of Nations | Author: P.J. O`Rourke
Publisher: Atlantic Monthly Press, December 2006
In 1776, Adam Smith, then a 53-year-old Scottish logician and economist, published his book "On the Wealth of Nations" that had nearly as great an impact on mankind and is regarded a sort of Bible for free-market devotees. Like the Bible, however, it is more cited than read -- and frequently least read by those who cite it most. And so having a well-known, highly accessible writer to introduce Smith`s work to contemporary audiences is a good idea. In the case the guide is P.J. ORourke.
O`Rourke lays out Smith`s chief contributions to our understanding of economic relationships and of the ways in which government policies can help or hinder trade. According to O`Rourke, Smith provided the logic of a level ground of economic rights upon which free enterprise could be built more easily. To a large degree, Smith was light years ahead of his time - in arguing aggressively for free trade, in proclaiming the dignity of labor at a time when much labor was unfree, and in making the now obvious connections between the pursuit of sustenance and riches and the pursuit of life, liberty and happiness. O`Rourke also manages to tease out an interesting contradiction in Smith`s work. Free market devotees tend to regard the free market and the attendant competition it spawns as a great leveler, as a guarantee that advantages earned in one generation dont automatically get passed on to successive ones. But Smith was still a man of the 18th century. He was concerned with order, respectful of tradition and rank and not particularly hostile to class. Unlike the French philosophers across the channel who were seeking to reinvent the world, Smith sought merely to improve it.
As O`Rourke has proven with other books he has two qualities as an author that makes his books highly enjoyable: he wants to understand what he writes about, and he is a brilliant satirist.
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