Quotation of the Day

Is from Michael Rizzo (AKA wintercow20) blogging at The Unbroken Window:

"It would also be nice if folks just staked their positions out instead of trying to cloak them up. My mental model is progressives are for anything that isn’t 'scary-tale versions of capitalism' based on what some ideologue 5th grade teacher told them about World War 2 ending the Depression, FDR saving America, labor market regulations designed to help the worst off, where our prosperity comes from, the role the robber barons played, etc. and the 'right' is for anything other than what progressives seem to be about. I do not think either is actually very much principled. If they were. then at least say, 'I am for liberty in every aspect and every regard even if it produces some outcomes which may seem reprehensible, and here is why …' or 'I am for the elites running things, or I am for industrial planning, even if it has produced historical global horror stories, and here is why …' But we can’t even get that. Just a lot of dressed-up gobbledegook."

Read the whole thing.

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section III, 'Of Self Command':

"The man who acts according to the rules of perfect prudence, of strict justice, and of proper benevolence, may be said to be perfectly virtuous. But the most perfect knowledge of those rules will not alone enable him to act in this manner: his own passions are very apt to mislead him; sometimes to drive him and sometimes to seduce him to violate all the rules which he himself, in all his sober and cool hours, approves of. The most perfect knowledge, if it is not supported by the most perfect self-command, will not always enable him to do his duty."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II,  'Of The Order in which Societies are by Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence':

"The man of system... is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it. If those two principles coincide and act in the same direction, the game of human society will go on easily and harmoniously, and is very likely to be happy and successful. If they are opposite or different, the game will go on miserably, and the society must be at all times in the highest degree of disorder."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II,  'Of The Order in which Societies are by Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence':

"The man whose public spirit is prompted altogether by humanity and benevolence... When he cannot conquer the rooted prejudices of the people by reason and persuasion, he will not attempt to subdue them by force; but will religiously observe... never to use violence to his country... He will accommodate, as well as he can, his public arrangements to the confirmed habits and prejudices of the people; and will remedy as well as he can, the inconveniencies which may flow from the want of those regulations which the people are averse to submit to. When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter III,  'Of Universal Benevolence':

"Though our effectual good offices can very seldom be extended to any wider society than that of our own country; our good-will is circumscribed by no boundary, but may embrace the immensity of the universe. We cannot form the idea of any innocent and sensible being, whose happiness we should not desire, or to whose misery, when distinctly brought home to the imagination, we should not have some degree of aversion."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Kevin Grier:

"Neither the Fed nor the President “runs” the economy. There is no stable, exploitable Phillips Curve / sous vide machine that lets us cook at a certain temperature."

Hat tip to Alex Tabarrok for this one.

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II,  'Of The Order in which Societies are by Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence':

"Amidst the turbulence and disorder of faction, a certain spirit of system is apt to mix itself with that public spirit which is founded upon the love of humanity, upon a real fellow-feeling with the inconveniencies and distresses to which some of our fellow-citizens may be exposed. This spirit of system commonly takes the direction of that more gentle public spirit; always animates it, and often inflames it even to the madness of fanaticism. The leaders of the discontented party seldom fail to hold out some plausible plan of reformation which, they pretend, will not only remove the inconveniencies and relieve the distresses immediately complained of, but will prevent, in all time coming, any return of the like inconveniencies and distresses. They often propose, upon this account, to new-model the constitution, and to alter, in some of its most essential parts, that system of government under which the subjects of a great empire have enjoyed, perhaps, peace, security, and even glory, during the course of several centuries together. The great body of the party are commonly intoxicated with the imaginary beauty of this ideal system, of which they have no experience, but which has been represented to them in all the most dazzling colours in which the eloquence of their leaders could paint it. Those leaders themselves, though they originally may have meant nothing but their own aggrandisement, become many of them in time the dupes of their own sophistry, and are as eager for this great reformation as the weakest and foolishest of their followers. Even though the leaders should have preserved their own heads, as indeed they commonly do, free from this fanaticism, yet they dare not always disappoint the expectation of their followers; but are often obliged, though contrary to their principle and their conscience, to act as if they were under the common delusion. The violence of the party, refusing all palliatives, all temperaments, all reasonable accommodations, by requiring too much frequently obtains nothing; and those inconveniencies and distresses which, with a little moderation, might in a great measure have been removed and relieved, are left altogether without the hope of a remedy."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II,  'Of The Order in which Societies are by Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence':

"...it often requires, perhaps, the highest effort of political wisdom to determine when a real patriot ought to support and endeavour to re-establish the authority of the old system, and when he ought to give way to the more daring, but often dangerous spirit of innovation."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Alberto Mingardi, writing recently on EconLog about Theresa May's Tory Party Conference Speech:

"...I find it bizarre that so many people wonder about why people feel poorer - and nobody, even among the Tories, dares to say that perhaps taxing them a bit less would be a way--which is entirely within the power of governments, without entailing bold plans for driving the market this or that way--to make people less poor. This would seem a rather obvious policy choice, for 'conservatives.' But apparently it is not."

Quotation of the Day

Is from Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments, Part VI, Section II, Chapter II, 'Of The Order in which Societies are by Nature Recommended to Our Beneficence':

"The love of our own nation often disposes us to view, with the most malignant jealousy and envy, the prosperity and aggrandisement of any other neighbouring nation. Independent and neighbouring nations, having no common superior to decide their disputes, all live in continual dread and suspicion of one another. Each sovereign, expecting little justice from his neighbours, is disposed to treat them with as little as he expects from them. The regard for the laws of nations, or for those rules which independent states profess or pretend to think themselves bound to observe in their dealings with one another, is often very little more than mere pretence and profession. From the smallest interest, upon the slightest provocation, we see those rules every day, either evaded or directly violated without shame or remorse. Each nation foresees, or imagines it foresees, its own subjugation in the increasing power and aggrandisement of any of its neighbours; and the mean principle of national prejudice is often founded upon the noble one of the love of our own country. The sentence with which the elder Cato is said to have concluded every speech which he made in the senate, whatever might be the subject, 'It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought to be destroyed,' was the natural expression of the savage patriotism of a strong but coarse mind, enraged almost to madness against a foreign nation from which his own had suffered so much. The more humane sentence with which Scipio Nasica is said to have concluded all his speeches, 'It is my opinion likewise that Carthage ought not to be destroyed,' was the liberal expression of a more enlarged and enlightened mind, who felt no aversion to the prosperity even of an old enemy, when reduced to a state which could no longer be formidable to Rome. France and England may each of them have some reason to dread the increase of the naval and military power of the other; but for either of them to envy the internal happiness and prosperity of the other, the cultivation of its lands, the advancement of its manufactures, the increase of its commerce, the security and number of its ports and harbours, its proficiency in all the liberal arts and sciences, is surely beneath the dignity of two such great nations. These are all real improvements of the world we live in. Mankind are benefited, human nature is ennobled by them. In such improvements each nation ought, not only to endeavour itself to excel, but from the love of mankind, to promote, instead of obstructing the excellence of its neighbours. These are all proper objects of national emulation, not of national prejudice or envy."