Dipanka Dasgupta's February Lost Legacy Prize

Dipankar Dasgupta, former professor of economics, Indian Statistical Institute, , in The Telegraph, Calcutta, India, 12 February, HERE:

‘The Wickedness Theory’

“Greed, of course, is a strong expression, bearing as it does the connotation of sinful behaviour. To the extent, though, that one is sitting on judgement against the background of market-driven societies, a paradox of sorts seems to arise. In this context, one cannot fail to recall one of the most frequently quoted sentences from Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.”

Smith, of course, may not have had market economies alone in his mind when he wrote these lines. It was a broader statement, indeed, for he was explaining a natural propensity for barter among civilized human beings. The latter acquire from others objects for their sustenance not by brute force, but through exchange based on mutual consent. Moreover, the consent in question is guided by self-interest. Or, as Smith points out, “Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer....” (One wonders, of course, if British colonial rule conformed to Smith’s perception of civilized behaviour.)

While Smith’s notion of self-interest cannot be identified with greed by any means, the dividing line between the two concepts turns imperceptibly thin once we move on to market-driven economies or capitalist societies. The driving force underlying the capitalist mode of production happens to be profit and, even without Marx’s insight, one ought to be able to appreciate the fact that more profit is necessarily preferred to less. Or, to link it to Smith’s wisdom, a capitalist’s self-interest lies in profit-making, and it is quite pointless to set an upper bound on the volume of profit that capitalist enterprises might desire. When an excess of revenue over cost constitutes the bull’s eye, the larger the excess, the happier is the man taking his aim.”

Comment
There is much else in Dipankar Dasgupta’s article (follow the link to read it). I praise Dipankar for his (?) appreciation of the true conclusion from Adam Smith’s famous paragraph of ‘the butcher, the brewer, and the baker’, which is about the ‘propensity to truck, barter, and exchange’ for mutual advantage, and not an assault of the moral behaviour of benevolence, as some badly informed people continue to repeat, possibly because they read only the short quotation and not the second chapter of Wealth Of Nations.

But Dipankar avoids that error. He also avoids the crass error (not too strong an expression, because the error is grossly crass) in confusing Adam Smith’s self-interest with selfishness. However, I do not agree that the distinction between selfishness and self-interest is “imperceptibly thin” in capitalist societies (a different form of market-driven society to that observed by Smith in mid-18th century Britain), particularly as Dipankar sees the profit motive as being the essential trigger for the change.

The characteristic difference in markets undergoing societal changes is that activities which begin as highly profitable tend to become less so as new entrants into those markets arrive and through competition drive down the rate of profit (I discussed this on Lost legacy recently). Capitalists engage in ever finer divisions of labour, and the outsourcing of inputs in longer supply chains, to drive down unit costs, which means price reductions for consumers and rises in their real incomes, while growing employment drives up their money incomes at the expense of declining profits.

The notion that there is an ever lasting rise in profit rates for bloated capitalists (more like salaried managers with share options, and dividends for shareholders, the majority of which are pension funds) is mythical, except in the current ‘good thing’ (derivative innovators) where large earnings attract finance specialists who drive down bountiful profits in time, until the next ‘good thing’ arrives. There is also the inevitable ‘bust’ cycle that ends every boom and bubble.
All this is despite individuals craving ‘more’ against the realities of the eventual ‘less’. And it is this psychological ‘delusion’ that keeps the economy ticking over (it keeps soldiers going in the heat of battle – ‘it won’t happen to me’…).

Technological possibilities are not ending; new ‘good things’ are on the horizon.

Smith puts it well:

“And it is well that nature imposes upon us in this manner. It is this deception which rouses and keeps in continual motion the industry of mankind. It is this which first prompted them to cultivate the ground, to build houses, to found cities and commonwealths, and to invent and improve all the sciences and arts, which ennoble and embellish human life; which have entirely changed the whole face of the globe, have turned the rude forests of nature into agreeable and fertile plains, and made the trackless and barren ocean a new fund of subsistence, and the great high road of communication to the different nations of the earth. The earth by these labours of mankind has been obliged to redouble her natural fertility, and to maintain a greater multitude of inhabitants.” (TMS IV.ii.10: p 183)

And Dipankar Dasgupta gets these thought mostly right. It is great to see an Indian economist understands these matters better than the majority of mainstream US and UK economists.

For this article Dipankar Dasgupta is awarded February's Lost Legacy Prize.

A Left-wing Anarchist Pronounces on Capitalism

Dan Goodman, currently doing postdoctoral research in theoretical neuroscience. Previously a mathematician, still a left-wing anarchist, amateur cook, and philosopher, posts at Le Samovar HERE:

“I wanted to explain why I think capitalism is a bad idea, and hopefully the reasons above do that. I’ve mostly focused on the present, but perhaps a word or two on the past and on the future. After all this criticism of capitalism, it would seem reasonable to respond that capitalism has done a great deal of good too. As Adam Smith says in the first chapter of Wealth of Nations, capitalism has allowed everyone to live better than kings of the past did (I’m paraphrasing here). I think that’s true. One might question whether or not that could have been achieved more expeditiously, but it’s in the past and the question is whether or not we can do better in the future. The Marxist (and some anarchists) would say that how you should organise society depends very much on the level of wealth. A rich society can in principle choose to organise itself in a much more egalitarian way than a poor one can. As our basic needs are provided for to a greater extent, we can stop worrying about living from moment to moment, and focus our attention on reorganising society to be more like how we wish it would be.

Experiments with Communism in the past largely failed for political reasons (democracy is essential), but also because countries that tried it hadn’t reached the point where basic needs were met, and because central planning was an inefficient mechanism (the planners didn’t understand the effects of their actions well enough, nor what was needed). I believe that the time may have come, or at least will quite soon come, when we will have the necessary means (basic needs satisfied, better understanding of economics, decentralised planning mechanisms such as those of parecon or otherwise) to do better than capitalism.”

Comment
Obviously a man who believes that he could re-arrange the ‘wooden pieces on a chess board’ merely by ordaining that it be done, forgetting, as Adam Smith reminds us in Moral Sentiments (TMS VI.ii.2.17: p234), that humans are not wooden pieces easily moved by a some human’s hand; with humans – and there are millions of them -‘each has a principle of movement of its own’.

That road leads to totalitarianism because the ‘man of system’ (in this case Dan Goodman) tries soft, then hard, persuasion, then soft laws and, when they don’t work well or fast enough, imposes harsher and harsher laws, all by necessity delegated to agencies staffed with other humans, who share neither the subtleties nor the shades of humanity that motivated the ‘leader’ in his younger days, and who behave with all the cruelty of the self-righteous on a mission to ‘change the world for the better’ – if only they could see the ‘higher purpose of history’, etc.

It is not democracy that ever fails, should it operate; it is the curbing of Liberty that causes all the problems. Dictators can arrange ‘democratic majorities’ – regular voting took place in all Communist countries, true there were only single party candidates; even Sadam Hussein held ‘elections’ (he ‘won’ them all), as did Mugabe, or his bought and paid for judges said so.

But what no dictator can hide or fool his or her citizens, or the world, about is whether the country is rule by the law, not men, and where Liberty prevails – freedom of assembly, freedom of an independent media, freedom of speech, the right to legal process under an independent judiciary, habeas corpus, trial by jury, and the occurrence of ‘inconvenient’ verdicts – the evidence is beyond doubt.

Dan writes: “As Adam Smith says in the first chapter of Wealth of Nations, capitalism has allowed everyone to live better than kings of the past did (I’m paraphrasing here)”. but, as always, the devil is in the detail.

Smith’s actual quotation is:

“Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages”. [WN I.i.11: p24]

Dan should note there is no mention of ‘capitalism’ (a word invented in English in 1854 and therefore unknown to Adam Smith who died in 1790). Smith wrote about ‘commercial society’, not capitalism, which was back-projected onto Adam Smith and the 18th century by modern economists, apparently more interested in politics, disguised as economic theory, than in historical accuracy.

Free Capitalism and Free Markets

C. Rick Koerber, of Free Capitalist Blog, discussed on Lost legacy, on Wednesday last (“Origins of the Word 'Capitalism'), has responded with a long commentary HERE:

My criticism of Rick Koerber’s article by focussed on the generality of his statements about the ‘Origins of the Word Capitalism’, which suggested a lack of specific knowledge of its origin and conclusively failed the report its origins, the presumed purpose, at least to this reader, of the article. It also offered a number of misleading origins, including that of Adam Smith’s role.

That some people believed this or that about origins of the word, capitalism, is no defence. The title of the article is specific: ‘Origins of the Word Capitalism’, and I expected a statement of what are verifiable facts of its origin somewhere in the article. But Rick did not state anything factual about the origin at all. Instead, he made misleading generalities about what others may have said, including Karl Marx, for example. This is what drew my attention and on which I commented.

My approach, as always, is educational; I stated the facts about the origins of the word, so that Rick and others could display command of the subject in future. Not knowing with whom I was dealing, but taking his statements at face value, I made no concession for his vague language and his failure to answer his own question.

I think clarity on these points is essential if he wants to promote market solutions to allocation and distribution issues in the 21st century. I added, for information, some facts about Adam Smith because it seemed to me that Rick did not appreciate his role.

Adam Smith did not write about ‘capitalist’ economies; he wrote about ‘commercial societies and markets’ (see his Lectures in Jurisprudence, [1762-63] 1978, and his Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth Of Nations, [1776] 1976, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, Indiana).

He did not even write a textbook on economics, mainly because there was no definitive and widely-agreed body of ideas suitable for a textbook treatment at the time (a discipline requires such a body of agreed material before it writes textbooks for wider study; by the time that body of knwoledge was acquired, the discipline had moved on from Adam Smith, at some cost in understanding).

Smith wrote a critique of the state-managed, mercantile society of mid-18th-century Britain and the consequences of the monopolistic British colonies of North America, with a subsidiary polemic against the activities of the Royal Chartered trading companies, then prevalent, especially the odious East India Company.

It should also be noted that the core ideas of Wealth Of Nations formed parts of his lectures to Moral Philosophy for students (aged 14-17) in his classes at Glasgow University from 1751-64. His main lectures were on ‘ethics’ and these appeared as his Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), which I think, in its six editions, is a more significant book than Wealth Of Nations (five editions, while he was alive), because Moral Sentiments is about lasting themes for individuals in society, more so than his albeit brilliant polemic against 18th-century State-mercantile policies. But that is a personal opinion.

Because Smith did not mention the word ‘capitalism’, Rick and Seth argue that this, by itself, does not mean that he did not write about what became capitalism, per se. That is, of course, true. However, the fact remains that what he did write about was not the phenomena we now call capitalism.

The differences between his outlook and what happened after the influence of the popularly-called ‘industrial revolution’, was a long process.

It was characterized by an evolution of power-, not hand-, driven machinery. In Smith’s account he was concerned with ‘manufacturing’ in its original meaning, ‘by hand’. He did not foresee the evolution of what became the modern banking system of finance capital, nor an accelerating technological revolution (electricity, chemistry, etc.,) and what became eventually a mass-consumer market, associated with continuous increases in per capita income from sustained general economic growth, which changed many of the fundamentals in Europe and North America to an unrecognizable degree.

The agricultural sub-structure of the economies known to Adam Smith were subjected to major structural changes, from near dominance of society into agriculture becoming a minor segment of ‘GDP’, for example; from mainly local markets (fairs, market days, small shops) to ‘national’ and ‘world’ business–to-business markets, with movements of unimagined large capitals across Europe and the Atlantic, now the Pacific; from local ‘dearth’ of food (even famine) to general food security, but with national ‘depressions’ (‘business cycles’); the beginnings of ‘State macro-management’ of national economies, and to the continuation, but on an ever larger scale, of national capitalist producers with State political objectives, accompanied by substantial lobbying of legislators and people who influence them; extra-state activity of large trade unions, and protest-driven, populist political parties and powerful NGOs; all of which sum to a world vastly different from Smith’s concerns and horizons.

In Smith’s world. Government expenditure was dominated by military procurement; today, though in total much greater, it rarely rises about 7 per cent and mostly is under 3 per cent of GDP.

Indeed, Adam Smith did not predict forward to a possible future; he is characterized by ‘looking backward’ in his outlook; he was not in the prediction business. A rare ‘prediction’ that he made was on the prospects for the former British colonies in North America, while discussing the eventual outcome of a theoretical union between the mother country and its colonies, was that in ‘little more than a century [1880], perhaps, the produce of America might exceed that of British taxation’ (and, interestingly, the seat of the British government ‘would remove itself from’ London to the former British colonies) [ WN IV.vii.c.79: pp 625-26].

In the main, Adam Smith’s perspective was an historical account of how and why society, as it was, had developed in the manner that it did. The shadow of the Fall of Rome, and its affect on Western Europe, from 5th century, the ‘barbarian’ invasion and the destruction of functioning Roman markets, and their slow revival from the 14-15th centuries to the revived commercial societies on the 17th-18th centuries, were Adam Smith’s focus. His books are replete with classical references, both literary and historical.

To which Smith added long chapters on the negative affects of ‘mercantile political economy’, which dominated all European governments, but held back the natural ‘spread of opulence’, especially among the majority families of the labouring poor, matched by the perfidious monopolizing spirit of many ‘merchants and manufacturers’, feeding off the ignorance of the landlord aristocratic order, which dominated the legislature and those who influenced them from among the educated middle order.

People quote Adam Smith (selectively) who clearly have never read Wealth of Nations (otherwise they would know all of the above) and have never read Moral Sentiments (otherwise they would know about how societies are dependent on the quality of justice and the moral behaviour of its participants). Homo economicus, a late 19th century invention, played no part in Smith’s thinking, yet is attributed to him by careless commentators.

Hence, Lost Legacy reacts to expressions of, albeit unintentional, lapses from those who refer to his political economy as if it would be at home with modern State-Capitalist societies. True, the nefarious behaviours of which in kind, in many crucial areas, have hardly changed from the mercantile fallacies of Smith’s time.

If they read Wealth Of Nations at all they would recognize how modern States pursue the same fallacious policies of ‘jealousy of trade’ – hostility to trading partners – and protectionism. Why does Europe, and the even larger US, require tariffs against poorer countries’ exports with a political passion that is as absurd now as it was when Smith wondered why there were hostile tariffs against the import of a few Irish cattle, when even if all of them were sent to Britain it would hardly affect the British meat market? This is why Smith’s general critical approach has resonance today, if quoted carefully.

The quotation from Professor Mark Skousen is interesting in this regard:

“The main character is Adam Smith…[His] captivating philosophy of natural liberty and the invisible hand rapidly became the central character of modern economics as the industrial revolution and political liberty exploded on the scene, and create a new era of wealth and economic growth over the next two centuries."

Adam Smith, like all moral philosophy students of Scottish Universities at the time, was introduced to Natural Law philosophy, as enunciated in a direct line, by 17th century philosophers, Grotius and Pufendorf, and by 18th century, Carmichael, and Hutcheson. Natural Law was and remains a set of ideas of jurisprudence (how civil governments ‘ought’ to be managed).

Natural Law was not a part of ‘laissez-faire’, though it is often confused with it, and, incidentally, Adam Smith never used the words ‘laissez-faire’, though he was familiar with them and what they meant from his contacts with the French Physiocrats (1764-66). He often refers to the natural law theories of natural liberty, which underlay his jurisprudential theory of individual rights. He was not, however, a purist and insisted there were justified exceptions to natural liberty Wealth Of Nations [WN II.ii.94: p 324].

I am not convinced that the origins, content and application of what Professor Skousen calls the “captivating philosophy of natural liberty” is understood by him when he goes on immediately to link it to “the invisible hand” as part of that same ‘captivating philosophy’. It wasn’t and isn’t.

Smith’s singular use of the metaphor of ‘an invisible hand’, mentioned only once in Moral sentiments (TMS IV.10, p 184), and only once in Wealth Of Nations, (WN IV.ii.9: p 456) was not a ‘theory’, captivating or otherwise; it was a literary metaphor that had nothing to do with markets. (See Lost Legacy, passim, for scores of explanations of the alleged role of ‘an invisible that are miscredited to Adam Smith.)

The ‘invisible hand’ was ignored by commentators on his books, including Malthus, Ricardo, Mill, and Marx, and was only joined to economics discourse when leading economists used it to beautify their theories of the triumph of their analysis from the mid-1950s.

Finally, I was not commenting on Rick’s sincerity, nor his enthusiasm for ‘capitalism’, which I may share, though I prefer freer markets to ‘corporate capitalism’, as I prefer Liberty to democracy (many of the world’s ‘democracies’ are alien to Liberty.

Origins of the Word 'Capitalism'

Free Capitalist (13 January) HERE carries this post:

“What is the history of the term ‘Capitalism’?”

“The use of the term ‘Capitalism’ has a long history. Adam Smith, often referred to as the ‘father of capitalism’ was the first modern proponent of a comprehensive philosophy defending the entire package of basic principles related to individual liberty as an indispensable ingredient to a moral, prosperous, and free society. Smith, a Scottish moral philosopher published his Magnum Opus, “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations” in 1776 about the same time the American Founders were declaring their independence from England.

The late eighteenth century is when the ‘philosophy of freedom’ took root for the first time in modern history. The American founders were heavily influenced both directly and indirectly generations of ancient philosophers and very powerfully by their proximate European intellectual predecessors such as Adam Smith, John Locke.

The core of their movement, the American Revolution, and the subsequent, rapid spread of freedom movements across the globe, was fueled by several basic principles be made popular by social, political and religious leaders who had come to a renewed or ‘enlightened’ view concerning the nature of individual man. These new views affected all spheres of human relations and were not restricted by politics, religious, or economic considerations alone.

Politically, the Founders referred to the ideas as ‘Republicanism.’ But, republics were not new on the world stage. What was new about the political achievement of the Founders was that for the first time in modern history it was advocated from a new, moral foundation-made possible by the post-enlightenment view that “all men” were “equal by nature” and that no man or group of men was “rightly entitled” to special moral privilege or consideration. Or, in other words, the longstanding tradition of cultural tyranny across the globe was challenged by a new view of individual man as the measure of all moral social interaction.

No man was required, according to this new view, to live primarily for another-as his slave, servant, serf or subject-being unjustly deprived of life, liberty or property by any other man or group of men claiming some supposed moral authority. This basic worldview was not restricted to use or meaning in the political discussions of the time but affected all elements of man’s relationships with other men and during the period of the American Revolution was often referred to simply as Americanism. The term, however, most consistently, effectively, and regularly used to define the entire body of thought related to this worldview, would later be coined as ‘capitalism.’

In modern society the term ‘Capitalism’ is used imprecisely and inaccurately. Many scholars suggest that the term ‘Capitalism’ and its related term ‘Capitalist,’ was first derived in the English vernacular from a translation of the pejorative term used by Karl Marx in the mid to late nineteenth century to describe the class of men he called the elite “bourgeois” society who owned and controlled “society’s capital resources.”

To students of the Founders, the philosophy of capitalism is the only moral system that guarantees to man his individual liberty, and therefore the only valid political, economic, and social standard for pursing prosperity and peace.”

Comment
I approached this article with a degree of optimism, unfortunately not justified by its content. It gives a distorted and in places inaccurate view of events, most particularly those associated with the origins of the word, capitalism and, to an extent, some characteristics of the foundation and first century of the American republic.

The word ‘Capitalism’ and its related term ‘Capitalist,’ were not “first derived in the English vernacular from a translation of the pejorative term used by Karl Marx” (though he certainly used them pejoratively in his writings).

‘Capitalism’ was a word and a phenomenon neither used by, nor known to, Adam Smith. Capitalism was a wholly late 19th-century experience. The Oxford English Dictionary (Vol II, p 863) locates its first usage in English in 1854 by William Makepeace Thackeray in his novel, The Newcomes.

Karl Marx published, in German, Das Kapital, in 1867 and subsequent translations introduced the word ‘capitalism’ to his readers some years later (Moscow's 'Marxist' editors during the Soviet era ‘interpolated’ the new word of capitalism into his works as if Marx himself had written it).

While Marx may have read Thackeray, it is unlikely that Thackeray read Marx in time to include the word, capitalism, thirteen years earlier in his novel.

Of the word ‘capitalist’, this was first used in English in 1792, by Arthur Young (Travels in France) and it was used by Turgot (in French) in his ‘Reflections on the Formation and the Distribution of Riches’ LXIII-IV, 1770.

If Adam Smith is ‘known’ as the ‘father of capitalism’, it is 20th-century accolade of which he knew nothing, nor, to be accurate, deserved. This is an example of projecting modern notions onto the past.

Technically “the American Founders were declaring their independence” from Britain, not England. Since the 1707 Act of Union between Scotland and ‘England and Wales’, the political entity of ‘England’ had ceased to exist and, as Scotland and England were already a single kingdom from the ascension of King James VI of Scotland to the English throne (he became King James I of the united kingdom) in 1604, which established the political entity of the ‘United Kingdom of Great Britain’.

I am loath to tread on the toes of sensitive patriots, but I think these sentences should be recast:

“What was new about the political achievement of the Founders was that for the first time in modern history it was advocated from a new, moral foundation-made possible by the post-enlightenment view that “all men” were “equal by nature” and that no man or group of men was “rightly entitled” to special moral privilege or consideration.”

and

“No man was required, according to this new view, to live primarily for another-as his slave, servant, serf or subject-being unjustly deprived of life, liberty or property by any other man or group of men claiming some supposed moral authority.”

If these statements are correct (I don’t think they are) there were some glaring deficiencies in their application in the new republic, which deficiencies lasted upt to the 'war between the states', and effectively operated in great measure up to the 1960s. I trust I do not need to elaborate…

Finally, Adam Smith did not write about ‘capitalism’ because it did not yet exist. The Wealth Of Nations is not an economics textbook.

It is a critique of the political economy of UK State power and its close relationships, through legislators and those who influenced them, with the new ‘order, of ‘merchants and manufacturers’, whose policies severely compromised the possibilities of the ‘commercial society’, which Smith wrote eloquently about.

Primarily this arose from their proclivity for state-sponsored monopolies, legal local monopolies in the Guilds, international monopolies from their Royal Charters (including in the British colonies of North America), in their chartered trading companies (of which the East India Company was the prime, and most disgraceful, example), their prejudiced policies arising from ‘jealousy of trade’, wars for trivial ends and domestic legislation, such as the Statute of Apprentices, the Settlement Acts, and one-sided laws against ‘combinations’.

If Adam Smith’s Wealth Of Nations was his magnum opus I am particularly impressed with his Moral Sentiments), it is one that is appreciated from its modern reputation and not from reading it in context.

And while I may sympathise broadly with the idea of a ‘free capitalism’, as opposed the state-capitalism and Big Government, I think the Free Capitalist Blog has some ways to go before it tops my daily reading list.

Melbourne 'Discover Capitalism' Club Sounds Most Interesting

A Blog advertising a discussion group announces an event entitled:
"Comparing Adam Smith & Ayn Rand on The Moral Foundations of Capitalism"
HERE:

The text about the discussion announced the background to the event:

“Our goal will be to identify
1. All the ways in which Adam Smith and Ayn Rand are similar
2. All the ways in which Adam Smith and Ayn Rand are different

Timothy Warner will present the basics of Adam Smith's approach.

Prodos will present the basics of Ayn Rand's approach.

This will not be a debate - but a careful, thoughtful, and thorough exploration; a mapping out of the terrain of each Thinker's thinking.

Many people treat Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations as a stand-alone defense of the Free Market. However, without a proper grasp his earlier work, Theory of Moral Sentiment, it is simply not possible to fully appreciate where Adam Smith is coming from and what he really means.

My research indicates that the term "the invisible hand" first appeared in Theory of Moral Sentiments (first published in 1759) - not in Wealth of Nations. But I'm still checking on this.

Most of us know Adam Smith as an Economist - as the father of Economics. Few are as versed with his work on Moral Philosophy. I believe you'll find Tim Warner's depth of understanding and clarity of communication on all things Adam Smith very strong.
Ayn Rand is more widely recognized as a moral philosopher and as an advocate of a particular kind of morality - one which explicitly leads to the advocacy of Free Market Capitalism.

She once wrote: "I am not primarily an advocate of capitalism, but of egoism; and I am not primarily an advocate of egoism, but of reason. If one recognizes the supremacy of reason and applies it consistently, all the rest follows."

Free Market Capitalism "follows" from Ayn Rand's epistemological and moral premises.
Free Market Capitalism "follows" from Adam Smith's epistemological and moral premises.

Are the two approaches compatible? If so, to what extent? Where do they diverge? Are any differences due to different views of Man? Of thinking? Of happiness? Of human relationships? Of the nature of reality? What does each thinker treat as most important or least important?”

There are many, many questions to explore. Come armed with your own! It's going to be a super evening! I look forward to your passionate intellect!”

Comment
It really sounds a worthwhile event and if scheduled on a regular basis it would be worth attending regularly (I assume the subjects discussed at the meetings change each time). On these grounds its sponsors and attendees appear to be serious people and similar in kind to regular readers of Lost Legacy.

Unfortunately, the discussions are not within easy reach of Edinburgh because the Club, ‘Discover Capitalism’, is in Melbourne, Australia. Any reader who knows of the club would be most welcome to inform Lost Legacy of its qualities, especially as it holds to the following principles for the conduct of its debates:

“Our members come from a wide range of politics and ideology within the pro-Capitalism spectrum, including: Conservative, Classical Liberal, Objectivist, Christian, Atheist, Libertarian, Liberal Party of Australia. Discussions are friendly but vigorous. We take ideas (and good manners) seriously!”

The nearest we have in Edinburgh to the Melbourne Club is the ‘Tuesday Club’ (to which dinner meeting I shall attend tomorrow evening – Tuesday, 25 November), which has a stimulating procession of good speakers and a club ‘rule’ that all attending are expected to speak in turn after the main speaker’s discourse, all over an excellent dinner.

While the Tuesday Club is ‘right of centre’, it is not homogenous in its views, and nor are its speakers. Last month’s was delivered by a senior ‘spin’ manager from the UK Labour Party’s cabinet-level-team of ‘spinners’ – and very thoughtful he was too in making the ‘Unionist’ case against Scottish independence. Being chairman for the night, I stuck to a self-denying ordinance not to speak, especially as long speeches by some members were followed by long responses albeit of excellent quality from the speaker.

However, if I ever get to Melbourne (again) I would hope to attend a meeting of the ‘Discover Capitalism’ club, unless I am told by Lost Legacy readers that its actual practice is different from its billing.

Meanwhile, members of the 'Discover Capitalism' club may want to discover something about Adam Smith and his Works from reading Lost Legacy regularly between their meetings.