So in an attempt to open my mind to different viewpoints (applause, please), I've been following
Think Progress for a while, only to find out what I already knew: bloggers tend to be really biased. It's okay to have certain principles, of course. Some people refer to having an opinion as "bias;" I don't. What I mean by bias is simply the ability to take information and use it solely for your own purposes, rather than seeking to modify those purposes. Take, for instance,
this post about "John Bolton's Misreading Of Adam Smith." In it, Ali Gharib criticizes John Bolton for taking a single quote from
Wealth of Nations and using it to drum up support for the conservative cause. Bolton is quoted as saying this:
Adam Smith wrote in The Wealth of Nations that “the first duty of the sovereign, that of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies, can be performed only by means of a military force.” Today, failing to protect our national security inevitably endangers our economic prosperity by making us vulnerable to global adversaries.
It is clear that President Obama does not agree with Smith’s wisdom. Obama’s policies are jeopardizing not only our national security and economy, but our constitutional sovereignty too.
That is why I have been considering running for President.
Gharib, in turn, uses Smith in the following way:
Other than providing for defense and a robust justice system, Smith wrote that the duties of the sovereign also include setting up “public institutions and public works” for:
facilitating the commerce of the society, and those for promoting the instruction of the people. The institutions for instruction are of two kinds: those for the education of youth, and those for the instruction of people of all ages.
Smith clearly indicates that other duties of the sovereign include educating the populace — possibly up through the university level — and paying for infrastructure projects that keep commerce strong, “such as good roads, bridges, navigable canals, harbours, etc.”
In short, Smith believed not only that governments should shoulder responsibility for the first duty of defense, but for other public projects as well. And how should governments pay for all of this, according to Smith? Well, with a progressive tax:
It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.
So, which side is misreading Adam Smith?
