I agree with the thrust of this, Max. You have to be pretty pure and very lonely to be a proper lefty by some lights. But, I'd argue that Smith reckoned the good social effects would only come if the self-seeking business fraternity were very closely watched by state agencies, else they'd nefariously combine towards bad social effects. I
mbs: quite right. have heard such sentiments from Nader in the past. Now he's saying the state agencies are nefariously combining with the self-seeking businessmen, isn't he? That pretty well matches Jim Devine's recent musings on the state, as I recall. And Jim's plenty left for me. Cheers, Rob. mbs: Nader's focus is not on the state but on the political parties which run the state, which is the right one IMO. The distinction from Smith is that Smith expects a great deal of social good to come from competitive markets (to be sure, with a limited state to enforce contracts and the like), whereas populists expect a great need for remedies to markets from the state, acting in the name of "the whole people." You could say populists, not being marxists, saw markets as something sullied by outside forces -- monopolists, sharp operators, etc. -- but that is not the thing as being deluded as to the possibility of marked-based economic justice. mbs
