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4.5
This is the best book I have read so far this year. The author succeeds in presenting this heavy work in an entertaining and humorous way. I think anyone reading this book will be encouraged to read the Wealth of Nations and inquire more on Adam Smith, if they haven't already done so.The Wealth of Nations, a book of free-market thinking and a book that shapes the world to this day, was first published in 1776, the year The United States of America gained its independence from Britain. The book was instantly recognized as being fundamental to an understanding of Economics. The original edition totaled over nine hundred pages in two volumes, which was considered long. It is a large volume because Adam Smith felt he was at the end of his life and he wanted to say all he could. In fact, The Wealth of Nations was orally dictated, significantly contributing to its length.According to P.J. O'Rourke, to understand The Wealth of Nations, you also need to read Smith's first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments. But now with On The Wealth of Nations, you don't need to read either, or so the book back cover claims. In fact, this book reads like a Cliff Notes, with laughter added.Adam Smith only wrote three books, the third, on law, being left uncompleted.P.J. Rourke shows us why Smith is still relevant today, why what seems obvious now was once revolutionary, and how the division of labor, freedom of trade, absence of government interference (the famous two words, `invisible hand'), and pursuit of self-interest espoused by Smith are vital to the welfare of mankind. There is nothing inherently wrong with the pursuit of self-interest. That was Smith's best insight. Smith further gives suggestions on how governments should be run, and how various classes of men should behave. Smith illuminated the mystery of economics in one flash: "Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production."Far from being an avatar of capitalism, Smith was actually a moralist of liberty. O'Rourke says, "it's as if Smith, having proved that we can all have more money, then went on to prove that money doesn't buy happiness. And it doesn't. It rents it." (I just love this quote!)I had to read Wealth of Nations for my O-Levels, and I got a B, the highest score in my class. I was hoping for an `A' actually, but I didn't have O'Rourke's book at the time.Some interesting quotes from the book:"Every tax, however, is to the person who pays it a badge, not of slavery, but of liberty. It denotes that he is subject to government, indeed, but that, as he has some property, he cannot himself be the property of a master.""To improve land with profit requires an exact attention to small savings and small gains, of which a man born to a great fortune...is very seldom capable."Never complain that the people in power are stupid. It is their best trait. In recent years we've seen a variety of powerful figures barter their authority for the gratification of childish vanities. Perhaps the Saudi royal family will be next to suffer the fate that Adam Smith described: "Having sold their birth-right, not like Esau for a mess of pottage in time of hunger and necessity, but in the wantonness of plenty, for trinkets and baubles, fitter to be the playthings of children than the serious pursuits of men, they became as insignificant as any substantial burgher or tradesman in a city.In 1776, Britain was the most powerful country on earth. The reason for this, wrote Smith, was plain: "That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish."Military power depends on economic success. Economic success depends on freedom. "No regulation of commerce," Smith wrote, "can increase the quantity of industry in any society... It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone."The rulers of Great Britain have, for more than a century past, amused the people with the imagination that they possessed a great empire on the west side of the Atlantic. This empire, however, has hitherto existed in imagination only. It has hitherto been, not an empire, but the project of an empire; not a gold mine, but the project of a gold mine...It is surely now time that our rulers should either realize this golden dream, in which they have been indulging themselves, perhaps, as well as the people; or, that they should awake from it themselves, and endeavour to awaken the people. If the project cannot be completed, it ought to be given up...Great Britain should free herself from the expence of defending those provinces in time of war, and of supporting any part of their civil or military establishments in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future views and designs to the real mediocrity of her circumstances.""What institution of government could tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as the general prevalence of wisdom and virtue? All government is but an imperfect remedy for the deficiency of these."One reviewer on Amazon.com had the following to say:"Socialism can work, but it requires people with the qualities of saints. The difference between O'Rourke's rant and the reality of earthly socialism was aptly seen by Leacock, who explained `socialism won't work except in Heaven, where they don't need it, or in Hell, where they already have it.' "Adam Smith died on July 17, 1790, leaving us a book that is still shaping our way of thinking! His stoic attitude toward death, recorded in his Moral Sentiments, was as follows: "Walk forth without repining; without murmuring or complaining. Walk forth calm, contented, rejoicing, returning thanks to the Gods, who, from their infinite bounty, have opened the safe and quiet harbor of death, at all times ready to receive us from the stormy ocean of human life."If you find The Wealth of Nations too long or too hard to read, then read P.J. O'Rourke's On The Wealth of Nations, and you will understand all the major concepts of Smith's book.
