WikiLeaks' Assange - TPP Not Only Trade, 83% Is Fascists Controlling Our Daily Lives

[Uncensored2008]

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That capitalists don't have a duty to meet the needs of society?

You missed the point of Smith.

The "capitalists" have a duty to maximize the return on capital employed.

In doing so, all that is needed and desired in a society is produced. It is amusing that the post YOU put up from the "Library of Economics and Liberty" (an excellent source!) pointed this out.

 

[bripat9643]

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Smith pointed out that trade is the basis of our obtaining the things we need

I have not stated anything contrary. Why do you insist on misrepresenting my position as stated.

Why do you pretend that this is not your post?

WikiLeaks' Assange - TPP Not Only Trade, 83% Is Fascists Controlling Our Daily Lives

You present the typical socialist view point. I understand that the hate sites try and twist Smith to be supportive of this, but that only appeals to the ignorant.

Smith was a free market advocate and laid out the reasons that an unfettered market leads to the accumulation of wealth. Smith advocated outsourcing and offshoring.

{“If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage.”} - WoN

He was not the Socialist that George Soros wants him to have been.

Smith was a free market advocate and laid out the reasons that an unfettered market leads to the accumulation of wealth.

Yes, he said that people are self interested in the accumulation of wealth and that self interest promotes favorable outcomes for society at large.

But the annual revenue of every society is always precisely equal to the exchangeable value of the whole annual produce of its industry, or rather is precisely the same thing with that exchangeable value. As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.

Smith advocated outsourcing and offshoring.

The caveat being that we sell them something in return so that our industries will not be diminished. Our trade deficit is presently over 40 billion and our industries along with society have been diminished.

What is prudence in the conduct of every private family can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom. If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry employed in a way in which we have some advantage. The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished, no more than that of the above-mentioned artificers; but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage. It is certainly not employed to the greatest advantage when it is thus directed towards an object which it can buy cheaper than it can make. The value of its annual produce is certainly more or less diminished when it is thus turned away from producing commodities evidently of more value than the commodity which it is directed to produce. According to the supposition, that commodity could be purchased from foreign countries cheaper than it can be made at home. It could, therefore, have been purchased with a part only of the commodities, or, what is the same thing, with a part only of the price of the commodities, which the industry employed by an equal capital would have produced at home, had it been left to follow its natural course. The industry of the country, therefore, is thus turned away from a more to a less advantageous employment, and the exchangeable value of its annual produce, instead of being increased, according to the intention of the lawgiver, must necessarily be diminished by every such regulation.
Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter 2 | Library of Economics and Liberty

It's good that you are looking into economic sources,, but you do grasp that your source supports my argument, and not your own, right?

That capitalists don't have a duty to meet the needs of society?

No.

 

[Freewill]

Hillary said that TPP is the gold standard of trade deals. What could go wrong with that endorsement?

And Unions still support her. A supporter of both NAFTA and TPP. Trump doesn't support either.

 

[Tehon]

[

That capitalists don't have a duty to meet the needs of society?

You missed the point of Smith.

The "capitalists" have a duty to maximize the return on capital employed.

In doing so, all that is needed and desired in a society is produced. It is amusing that the post YOU put up from the "Library of Economics and Liberty" (an excellent source!) pointed this out.

You missed the point of Smith.
I don't think so. I missed your point for sure.

Wealth of Nations is a refutation of mercantilism which sought to close a nation's borders and trap wealth. Smith's philosophy was that the wealth of a nation was measured by the produce of its labor. All the tenants of the free market and the rational self interest associated with the accumulation of wealth are supposed to benefit the nation as a whole by encouraging the need for more labor. The earliest version of trickle down. The problem is it doesn't work when you hollow out industry. Society and our economy suffers as a result. More and more people are coming to terms with it, it's part of Trumps appeal, no.

As far as the point about business responsibilities go, you are correct that Smith only advocated that business maximize profits. I was pointing out that when business chose to move and left the people unemployed the burden of meeting the unemployed's basic needs shifted to the taxpayers. If that implies responsibility on the business then so be it but for business it was never a burden as they retained profit from the human capital they employed.


Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage or as an inconveniency to the society?*38The answer seems at first sight abundantly plain. Servants, labourers and workmen of different kinds, make up the far greater part of every great political society. But what improves the circumstances of the greater part can never be regarded as an inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, cloathed and lodged.
Smith: Wealth of Nations, Book I, Chapters 8-9 | Library of Economics and Liberty, Ch.8, Of the Wages of Labour