Advocating For Capitalism

"ON THE CAUSES and Nature of the Wealth of Nations", more commonly known by the abbreviated title "The Wealth of Nations", is arguably among the most seminal books ever written, by 18th century Scottish economic and moral philosopher Adam Smith. It was published in the iconic year 1776. I haven't read it, and probably never will. I have read "about it" ( you now how that goes). It has been, not without validity, described as "the Bible of capitalism". It was an immediate best seller. Until recently in my ignorance I had always assumed that the book merely described the capitalist economic system in theory, but did not advocate for it. Actually, he not only described it in theory, he advocated for its implementaion at the beginning of the industrial revolution. During Smith's lifetime, "mercantilism" dominated economic activity in Europe, a system in which production and distribution of goods and services is determined, or heavily influenced by government regulation. Adam Smith was the first to develop and employ the modern economic concepts of division of labor and free markets. All this is well known. What is far less known is that Smith was not unhesitatingly an approving advocate for every aspect of free market economics. For one, he saw the encroaching factory system, in which extrreme specialization of labor and the assembly line immprove efficiency and production, not only as beneficial for national prosperity, but also, as harshly, brutally harmful to the individual worker. Smith saw that in the factory system human beings were reduced to mechanical cogs in a great grinding machine, reducing workers to worn out but replaceable parts. In theory, he said, if the profits from production are distributed fairly among those who are responsible for it, and without any external corrupting influences such as monopolies and heavy handed govenment involvement, fluctuations in the labor supply, prolonged bad weather or war, the workers, managers, and owners should all become economically equal, in accordance with the free market of labor. Otherwise, labor is being exploited by the owners for their own enhanced pfofit. Smith failed to foresee the tyrannical, dictatorial manner in which capitalists and industrialists would typically treat their workers, ruthlessly exploiting them with low pay, long hours, and poor working conditions. He underestimated the helplessness of workers against the tyranny of their slave wage masters in the absence of labor unions, which to Adams were nothing more than another corrupting influence against the purity of the capitalist system. In an unfetterd, truly free market economy, he asserted, widespread economic equality is the result. Accordingly, we can see that in in our modern economy, capitalism has not been allowed to operate in pure form, but has been distorted by the factors described above. Every major industry in America is a virtual monopoly. In order to resist exploitation workers form unions, and become enemies of their employers. Adam smith was wrong about the free market automatically distributing wealth equally.The governemnt is not the cause of the vast concentration and disparity of wealth in the industrialized world, expecially in the United States. The cause is capitalism itself. Capitalsim is in fact an economic system which inherently concentrates great wealth in the hands of an elite few, under all conditions. The "free market", like a perfect vaccuum, is merely a concept which does not and can never exist, because Adam smith stipulated that in orfer for it to work, people must behave in a rational manner, in their own self interest. And that, my fellow socialists, is precisely what people do not do, have never done, and never can or will do.