Adam Smith: relative inequality is absolute poverty - Page 2

FlFishOn · #1 05-23-2006, 10:58 AM

I stuck it to the man when I was 22. I started my own business with next to zero capital and built it up into a dozen year success. Anyone with desire and just enough intelligence can do it. Being dull is a huge impediment. For that reason I would like to promote the procreation of bright people and discourage the dull from breeding, in the name of egalitarianism.

The once and future king · #2 05-23-2006, 11:37 AM

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Anyone with desire and just enough intelligence can do it.

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1. Scarcity of recources.
2. Competition.
3. Vast majority of Business Start ups fail.
4. Sample size to small.
5. 100% consensus amongst all anaylists/philosopher/thinkers of any persuasion that the worst way to make conclusions about the universe is to reduce it entirely to conclusions based upon your own anecdoctal experience.

FlFishOn · #3 05-23-2006, 11:45 AM

You are free to fail. No one will stop you.

The once and future king · #4 05-23-2006, 12:19 PM

You are free to remain ignorant.

haarley · #5 05-23-2006, 12:20 PM

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1. Scarcity of recources

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What resourses are scarce?
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2. Competition.

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There are plenty of fields with little or no competiton. And even if there is competition is that really a bad thing?
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3. Vast majority of Business Start ups fail.

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Why do they fail?
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4. Sample size to small.

[/ QUOTE ] Just a convenient way to always dismiss real life experience?
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5. 100% consensus amongst all anaylists/philosopher/thinkers of any persuasion that the worst way to make conclusions about the universe is to reduce it entirely to conclusions based upon your own anecdoctal experience.

[/ QUOTE ] 100% concensus that using the failure of others as the basis for your failure without even trying will always lead to your continued failure?

The once and future king · #6 05-23-2006, 12:30 PM

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What resourses are scarce?

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Wait for it............

ALL OF THEM.

Seriously the dumbest reply evaaaar on this forum. You are to dumb to contribute in any meaningfull way to this topic.

You are the weakest link.
Goodbye.

Just to add in seriousness, is that all the objective factual evidence is that only a very few can do it regardless of ability. For the record I am one of those people.

haarley · #7 05-23-2006, 09:34 PM

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You are free to remain ignorant.

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Seriously the dumbest reply evaaaar on this forum. You are to dumb to contribute in any meaningfull way to this topic.

[/ QUOTE ] wow very compelling arguments. I have seen the light. I'm so dumb I can't contribute in any meaningful way, Yet I started my own business from virtually nothing. I guess that should make it really easy for anyone above the retarded level of thinking. So there the problem of poverty has been solved. Good job Mr. King

Riddick · #8 05-23-2006, 01:28 PM

Having just read Wealth of Nations, this OP smacks of dishonesty.

Moorobots first quote is from Book I, Chapter 8 entitled "Wages of Labour." Immediately following this quote, in this very chapter, Smith explains:

"When in any country the demand for those who live by wages, labourers, jounryemen, servants of every kind is continually increasing ; when every year furnishes employment for a greater number than had been employed the year before, the workmen have no occasion to combine in order to raise their wages. The scarcity of hands occasions a competition among masters, who bid against one another in order to get workmen, and thus voluntarily break through the natural combination of masters not to raise wages."

"The demand for those who live by wages, it is evident, cannot increase but in proportion to the increase of the funds which are destined for the payment of wages." [i.e. demand for labor cannot increase but in proportion to capital accumulation]

"When the [master] has a greater revenue than what he judges sufficient to maintain his own family, he employs either the whole or a part of the surplus in maintaining one or more servants. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the number of those servants." [HENCE the DEMAND for LABORERS goes UP]

"The demand for those who live by wages [i.e. laborers], therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of revenue and stock [i.e. capital accumulation and savings] of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it."

"It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labor." [ i.e. heavy taxation disincentivizing and therefore decreasing capital accumulation is a recipe for poverty]

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And thats all simply from the immediate following paragraphs of what moorobot clipped.

But no, Adam Smith goes into even further detail throughout Wealth of Nations.

In North America, he notes the much higher wages of labor than in England. And so he posits a reason:

"The demand for labourers, the funds destined for maintaining them, increase, it seems, still faster than they can find labourers to employ."

In the chapter entitled "Profits of Stock":

"It generally requires a greater stock to carry on any sort of trade in a great town than in a country village. The great stocks employed in every branch of trade, and the number of rich competitors, generally reduce the rate of profit in the former below what it is in the latter. But the wages of labour are generally higher in a great town than in a country village. In a thriving town the people who have great stocks to employ, frequently cannot get the number of workmen they want, and therefore bid against one another in order to get as many as the can, which raises the wages of labour and lowers the profits of stock."

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I guess those immediately following and explanatory quotes are not among your favorite Moorobot.

86ed Everywhere · #9 05-23-2006, 02:01 PM

Disingenuous editing from Moorobot AND there's gambling going on in here? I'm shocked I tell you, shocked!

Moorobot.....hmmm.....Clockwork cow or Michael Moore toady?

GMontag · #10 05-23-2006, 10:38 PM

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"The demand for those who live by wages, it is evident, cannot increase but in proportion to the increase of the funds which are destined for the payment of wages." [i.e. demand for labor cannot increase but in proportion to capital accumulation]

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That's not what Smith is saying at all. Capital is generally not used for paying wages and salaries. Capital is used for buying equipment, space, etc. One time large purchases that enable production. Wages, operating costs, and other ongoing expenditures are paid out of revenue.

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"When the [master] has a greater revenue than what he judges sufficient to maintain his own family, he employs either the whole or a part of the surplus in maintaining one or more servants. Increase this surplus, and he will naturally increase the number of those servants." [HENCE the DEMAND for LABORERS goes UP]

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Of course, this is simple demand-side economics. Increased demand for your product = increased revenue = increased demand for labor.

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"The demand for those who live by wages [i.e. laborers], therefore, necessarily increases with the increase of revenue and stock [i.e. capital accumulation and savings] of every country, and cannot possibly increase without it."

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What the hell? Is English your second language or something? Revenue is *not* capital accumulation. Revenue is sales. You can save all the money you want and buy a 100,000 sq. ft. building for your factory and fill it with all the $500,000 CNC machines you can afford, if you have no demand for your product or services, and therefore you have no sales and no revenue, you're not going to be employing anyone. Demand for labor follows demand for products, not supply of capital.