I think it is amusing (and not at the same time) that the previous administration and conservatives in general HAD latched on to Adam Smith’s Free Market views as the model for our country to thrive upon. Much like anything else, they were clueless as to what Adam Smith meant and only used small bits and pieces to enrich themselves and their donor friends. As we saw for the past 8 years what the GOP says and it does are 2 entirely different things. I think if you were to ask bush who holds an MBA from one of those elite northern universities, what a free market is and how the government he ruled upon acted in Adam Smith’s Free Market image, his head would explode attempting to answer it.
A while back I had a reading list suggested to me by several of our readers. P.J. O’Rourke’s “Eat the Rich” suggested by Duffy was in it. That book was out so I picked up “On the Wealth of Nations” by the same (conservative, writer for the conservative Weekly Standard) It is essentially an abridged version with a conservative slant of “The wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. Know thy enemy, as the saying goes…
Part of Adam’s Smiths view of a government was this:
First the duty of protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or oppression of every other member of it…; thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain
I guess the GOP skipped over that part of Adam Smith’s Free Market theory