![]() ![]() The actions of the redistributive state - call it the welfare state if you prefer - are political actions. Present-day collectivists concur they want a national plan which taxes away about 40 per cent of the peoples’ earnings in order to redistribute these billions of tax dollars to politically selected individuals and groups. The theory of Mercantilism held that government must control and manage the economy, else production would be chaotic and the right people would not be properly rewarded. ![]() The major theme of The Wealth of Nations has to do with the interaction between government and the economic order. Mercantilism, in short, is the prototype of today’s totalitarian state, where government - by controlling the economy - exerts a commanding influence over people in every sector of their lives. Now, if someone holds the power of decision over you as to whether you eat or starve, he’s acquired considerable leverage over every aspect of your life you do not bite the hand that feeds you! If someone controls your livelihood, you do his bidding, or people start talking about you in the past tense! What do you get? You get political control over what you eat. Take the theory of Mercantilism and boil it down. The modern authoritarian state, of course, has more efficient methods of surveillance and control than did the governments of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but the basic idea is similar. Mercantilism was the planned economy par excellence the nation was trussed up in a strait jacket ofregulations just about as severe as the controls imposed today upon the people of Russia or China. The goal of Mercantilism was the enhancement of national prestige by accumulating the precious metals, but the goal was not nearly so significant as the means employed to reach it. The nations of Europe at this time embraced a theory of economic organization called "Mercantilism." Mercantilism was based upon the idea of national rivalry, and each nation sought to get the better of other nations by exporting merchandise in exchange for gold and silver. ![]() There were numerous laws designed to regulate trade, but the laws were difficult to enforce, and so they were ignored. These colonial manufacturers and farmers had been practicing economic freedom all along simply because the Crown was too busy with other matters to interfere seriously. There had to be carpenters and cabinet makers, bricklayers and blacksmiths, weavers and tailors, gunsmiths and bootmakers. The colonies, of course, were largely agricultural but of necessity there were also artisans of all sorts. There was a Whig faction in the British Parliament and many Englishmen were bound to the American cause by strong intellectual and emotional ties.Īdam Smith’s book was warmly received here, not only because it was a great work of literature, but also because it provided a philosophical justification for individual freedom in the areas of manufacture and trade. Adam Smith was a Whig the men we call Founding Fathers were Whigs. The Tories favored the King and the old regime the Whigs worked to increase freedom in society. In England, as in the colonies, there were two opposed political factions-Whigs and Tories. This is a remarkable fact, for there were only three million people living on these shores two centuries ago, and about one-third of these were Loyalists. The Wealth of Nations sold briskly in the American colonies, some 2,500 copies within five years of publication, even though our people were at war. Smith had made a name for himself with an earlier volume entitled Theory of the Moral Sentiments, published in 1759, but he is now remembered mainly for his Wealth of Nations, on which he labored for ten years. We celebrate in 1976 the bicentennial of two significant events, the signing of the American Declaration of Independence, and the publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith. This article is from a lecture of February ✗, ✙76, at the Taft School, Watertown, Connecticut. Opitz is a member of the staff of the Foundation for Economic Education, a seminar lecturer, and author of the book, Religion and Capitalism: Allies Not Enemies.
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