Hacker News Reader

Comment by howaboutnope | Hacker News Reader

> People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.

-- Adam Smith

View on HN

> Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many [...] Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all

-- Adam Smith

The whole point of his book is that if there are proper functioning markets is that these conversations are not actually effective. Compared to a system of mercantilism that he was opposing.

Sure, but "proper functioning markets" in this case means competitive markets, not laissez-faire as such, as modern libertarians like to imagine. That's kind of the problem of taking the words of someone writing at the time when governments were granting monopolies, and trying to apply them to the time when governments are busting them.

You vastly underestimate 'modern libertarians' probably because your exposure to them is based on angry twitter or whatever.

In reality during the last 200 years classical liberal tradition has thought more about markets and how they work then anybody else. Constitutional economics, institutional economics, law&economics, market process theory are partly built on Smith work and are explorations of the context of markets.

So I don't really know what you are referencing with 'Sure, but "proper functioning markets" in this case means competitive markets, not laissez-faire as such' as I don't know what definitions you for these words.

People like FA Hayek, Armen Alchian, Ronald Coase and many others have done a lot of work and all look back and build on Adam Smith. The idea of some people in this thread that modern libertarians only read the understand Adam Smith as 'invisible hand' is nonsense. 'Invisible hand' was adopted because it is a good shorthand for the idea of processes that are not centrally guided are very important.

There was also a lot of historical work done on English Common law and its evolution and how modern market relations evolved and actually functioned.

My exposure to them is based on having been one. And I know for a fact that most of them believe that whatever a laissez-faire - defined as completely unregulated - market produces, is inherently optimal. Some will argue that it will not have monopolies; but many will argue that when it does, that's because a monopoly is more efficient, and so it's a good thing overall.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com