Learning to Listen - Part 6

I’m not going to give a Labor Day talk, but that’s where we’ll startLast year I felt it was important that I read Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations– Smith is sometimes referred to as the Father of Capitalism• he explored the principles of economics that caused some systems of flourish and others to flounder– one concern was the ways that governments interfered with industries and commerce• but something disturbed me as I read through his detailed research and conclusions◦ Smith took for granted that there would always be a huge mass of poor people◦ he saw this as the general pattern of civilizations from ancient history• there were always masters and slaves, emperors and subjects, kings and paupersHere are a few quotes I pulled from his work:Smith, “All for ourselves and nothing for others, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind. . . . As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents for themselves, they had no disposition to share then with any other persons.”– “For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few [assumes] the indigence of the many.”– When the economy of a nation is static rather than increasing, wages for the workers are barely enough to raise a family or even continue the “race of laborers.” “. . . there is no order that suffers so cruelly from [a nation’s economic decline as the poor].” However, the voices of the poor were rarely heard, except in when there were public demonstrations.