Wes Clark: The Real State of the Union
I've been in a deeper-than-normal political depression for several weeks. A sick feeling was growing in my gut that the damage being done by this administration might be irreparable. That even this great country might not be able to recover from five--and, God help us, eight before it's all over--years of almost uninmaginable incompetence and corruption. Early in the Bush's administration I have to admit that I took a certain smug satisfaction in having been right about him. That time is over. Now I'm alarmed.
The Republican party is apparently irredeemable in the short-to-medium run, and the Democrats are, well, the Democrats. This is a party that thinks it's a good idea to make Howard Dean its public face, and that can't even manage to look good when compared to the terminally irrational and corrupt crop of current Republican front-men. It's also a party that seems to think that Hilary Clinton has a non-zero probability of being elected president.
So it was with mixed feelings that I read Wes Clark's The Real State of the Union speech. On the one hand, I was immeasurably heartened to be reminded that people this smart and good and level-headed still exist in American politics. On the other hand it was painful to have to reflect again on the fact that this man is sitting on the sidelines while a man who is not qualified to polish Clark's medals is at the helm of the free world.
I still think that Clark is too smart to win the presidency, and too moderate to even win the nomination. But the mere fact of his existence gives me hope.
Read the speech. And if you're like me, afterwards you'll have an irresistable inclination to give a bit to WesPAC.
[HT: Statisticasaurus Rex]
I've been in a deeper-than-normal political depression for several weeks. A sick feeling was growing in my gut that the damage being done by this administration might be irreparable. That even this great country might not be able to recover from five--and, God help us, eight before it's all over--years of almost uninmaginable incompetence and corruption. Early in the Bush's administration I have to admit that I took a certain smug satisfaction in having been right about him. That time is over. Now I'm alarmed.
The Republican party is apparently irredeemable in the short-to-medium run, and the Democrats are, well, the Democrats. This is a party that thinks it's a good idea to make Howard Dean its public face, and that can't even manage to look good when compared to the terminally irrational and corrupt crop of current Republican front-men. It's also a party that seems to think that Hilary Clinton has a non-zero probability of being elected president.
So it was with mixed feelings that I read Wes Clark's The Real State of the Union speech. On the one hand, I was immeasurably heartened to be reminded that people this smart and good and level-headed still exist in American politics. On the other hand it was painful to have to reflect again on the fact that this man is sitting on the sidelines while a man who is not qualified to polish Clark's medals is at the helm of the free world.
I still think that Clark is too smart to win the presidency, and too moderate to even win the nomination. But the mere fact of his existence gives me hope.
Read the speech. And if you're like me, afterwards you'll have an irresistable inclination to give a bit to WesPAC.
[HT: Statisticasaurus Rex]
posted by Winston Smith at
12:48 PM
36 Comments:
Winston,
I'm with ya on Clark. I worked for him during the primaries, but alas, despite finishing second in NH and winning OK, he never got any traction in the media.
I did believe he was electable, though, at least in the general election, as did this guy:
http://magazine.14850.com/0402/whywesleyclark.html
"We need to harness the innovation of our biotech, pharmaceutical, and health insurance industries better to serve the public good, not just the private gain of shareholders."
Statist. I don't mean that pejoratively, but this kinda stuff just doesn't fly in America.
Yes, Americans hate when things are done for the public good. Why, that's practically the same thing as nationalizing all industry.
I'm always distressed when economics is put into moral terms, as if Adam Smith never existed.
Which is good and more just: that one man eats caviar while another dines on only pizza, or if everyone eats dirt?
Although I suppose it's the height of asceticism, I see nothing sensual about eating dirt. But pizza is fine with me. Yum.
I get distressed when people refuse to apply moral terms to economics, as though Karl Marx never existed.
Which is good and more just: when one man eats caviar while the workers he exploits eat rice every other day, or when everyone has the same economic capability to lead a meaningful life without being exploited in the process?
I don't mean that communism is the way to go; the point is that economics isn't just a matter of supply in demand. Economic power is still just power over another person, a patently moral issue.
It is a matter of morality TO ME, but that's not what justifies some government harnessing and directing of resources toward the commonweal, IMO. What justifies it to me is the littering of history with societies in which the disparity in wealth and resources led to great instability and ultimately great upheaval, often with quite nasty consequences.
The continued viability of our nation, and thus inherently its ability to sustain the population, is what justifies a government safety net. If collective management of physical security is superior, why not collective management of economic security?
Very very soon, after the tyrannies of Cuba and North Korea meet their inevitable demises, it will be as though Karl Marx never existed, and he will take his rightful place on the ash heap of history.
Except perhaps on American university campuses, the only places in the world where Marx can be introduced into discussion without well-earned derision. You are due a refund on your tuition, J. They're teaching you how to fix Corvairs.
Whatsa matter, LC---pizza not good enough for you?
It always distresses me when people put economics into strictly laissez-faire terms, as though massive market failures never existed.
I mean, the health insurance industry. Slice it how you like, the U.S. health insurance system sucks -- we spend more money for worse care than countries with more socialized systems. Trying to change that isn't 'statism' (which I think could be the subject of a fallacy itself -- notice how it started off to mean total central planning, and has been hijacked to paint any government intervention with the brush of socialism.
Marx did two things:
(i) He diagnosed a problem with capitalism (the exploitation of the working class)
(ii) He prescribed a solution (communism)
His solution was misguided, but that fails to count as good evidence against his diagnosis. Even people with bad ideas are right sometimes.
Adam Smith's laissez-faire doctrine prohibits government intervention in economic matters in the faith that market decisions by consumers would influence what is produced, and at what price. But in the absence of governmental checks and balances those with entrenched economic power, the tycoons and corporations and heirs to a family fortune, can influence that market-decision process disproportionatly. Thus, we have exploitation of the underclass of workers.
To pretend that Karl Marx never existed, or that he wrote nothing worth reading, is a failure to learn from two mistakes of history:
(i) Communism doesn't work
(ii) Laissez-faire isn't good enough either
Those who categorically dismiss Marx focus only on the first, at the expense of the second.
ps. I'm sure I'm coming across as rather vitriolic, but that shouldn't be taken to imply any kind of hostiliy to your point of view, TVD. When one encounters an opinion which contradicts their own, the tendency is to heap scorn and derision on the other, instead of debating the strengths of each in a responsible search for the truth; my intent is the latter of these.
One of the odd things about conservatives is that they tend to think that government should be able to interfere in our lives in a large number of particularly intrusive ways...but that our pocketbooks are sacrosanct.
Note also the tendency among many conservatives to want to put moral issues front and center in politics...but not economics.
It's an elementary confusion to say, e.g., that moral concerns are alien to economics b/c it's just about e.g. supply and demand. That's to confuse the laws of economics with political questions about what we do with our economy. The former questions are purely descriptive, the latter are partially moral.
I can understand libertarians who want government out of everything...and I can understand statist liberals who say 'stay out of the important things in my life, but it's o.k. to take a good bit of my money'...but I can't understand conservatives who say, in effect, "you can tell me how to live my life, but don't touch my cash."
Anyway, as criticism of Clark's speech, this is pretty thin gruel.
What do you call the belief that government ought to be as weak as possible in all spheres except except the application or threatened application of violence, where it should be as powerful as possible?
What J said. And mmmmm...pizza.
What do you call the belief that government ought to be as weak as possible in all spheres except except the application or threatened application of violence, where it should be as powerful as possible?
Republicanism, of course.
Yes, Tony, but I try anyway.
J, Adam Smith quite acknowledges the problem with capitalism, which is the same of any system, economic or otherwise---the concentration of power. He is anti-monopolistic, and sees both the utilitarian and moral value of looking after the poor. He's really quite a softy.
But where capitalism has the capacity to be carnivorous, Marxism/statism is downright cannibalistic. Marx has imposed a mean dialectic/philosophy/politics on man where Smith simply analyzes a spontaneous natural phenomenon---the creation of wealth.
WS, I skipped the political critique on Clark's speech and went right to what I think will derail his candidacy, if he truly believes that. Big pharma just came up with an insulin delivery system that doesn't require needles. They stand to make a billion a year on it.
Take away the profit motive, and I don't think it gets developed for at least another 20 years. People work harder for themselves, friends, and family than for some faceless "public good." Condemning that facet of man's nature may bring moral comfort to some, but to me it's a waste of time. You can't blame a cat for not being a dog. "Harness" one at your own folly.
Examples of people working hard for the "faceless public good": soldiers, MLK, Gandhi, Manhattan Project, firefighters, astronauts, teachers, among many others.
The profit motive can work against innovation too. Your insulin delivery system is a perfect example. That system requires constant maintenance and frequent replacement, guaranteeing the voracious consumption of means/capital.
How's work on the CURE for diabetes coming? Oh, you mean once a person is cured, there's no more cash flow? Sorry, we're not interested. Same reason there's problems in the vaccine industry - no guarantee of a consistent cash flow.
You don't have to be Uwe Reinhardt to know that free markets don't work for the delivery of some needs, health care among them.
I would also add that two (related) reasons the private sector can't deliver health care as efficiently as the public are:
1. Private insurance distorts the feedback loop by which price affects buying decisions. Once the premium is paid, very little attention is paid to the remuneration paid by the plan to the provider.
2. There is no elasticity in demand for truly needed care; people will pay ANYTHING to get well, unlike with true commodities which people will shun (or look for alternatives) when the price gets too high.
Truly needed care is taken care of by the county health systems.
I know because I drove my friend for his AIDS treatments that didn't cost him a penny.
He's still alive after 10 years. I'm glad, and you can tax me as much as you want to keep his non-elastic demand supplied.
But if you're saying that the rest of the human race is here for the purpose of fulfilling your needs, well, I got a problem with that. For one thing, they won't do it. They have lives, too.
"I'm glad, and you can tax me as much as you want to keep his non-elastic demand supplied."
Great. Then I assume you won't mind if I tax you less than *as much as I want*, because a single payer can give him his AIDS treatments for less.
And if you think you can tax me "as much as you want" (or make my premiums "as much as you want), rather than the smaller sum that would be necessary under a different delivery system, to fulfill your friend's needs, well, I got a problem with that. For one thing, I won't do it. I have a life too.
And just out of curiosity, do you think that the treatment your friend got that "didn't cost him a penny" was not paid for, by anyone?
If you live in the same county, you helped pay for it. You paid for the medication and the treating physician. As did all of your neighbors.
Somewhere, somehow, somebody always pays. Either it's paid by government, through tax revenue, or its subsidized by insurance companies paying more when their insureds visit those same providers (for which we all pay higher premiums) who agreed to treat your friend for less. If there's a way for us all to pay less, we should at least consider it.
Well, we're running a bit far afield. My point was that despite the blather about "45 million uninsured," there does exist a safety net. But neither do I want the safety net to choke the whole magilla.
By coincidence, before his unfortunate affliction, that same friend put up with the crappy county system to set a broken leg he got while skiiing, because he didn't want to pay, although he could afford to. In its being crappy (tho not much worse than what my friends tell me about the much-touted English system), there is a self-rationing that occurs.
Remove the incentive for self-rationing, and people will use health services to exhaustion.
(Which is the current problem even in private health plans. That there is a problem is undeniable.)
One thing I don't understand, Tom, is why you criticize both the 'overuse' of our system which drives up its costs and the Canadian and British models which involve longer waits for less serious procedures yet provide everybody with timely preventive care and severe illness care. Seems to me, you would be more disposed to those models if you wanted to relieve the pressure on the system created by on demand treatment for anything and everything.
But that's really a small digression.
The truth is that it's not *overuse* that generates most of the costs in our system; it's severe illness. A disproportionately high percentage of health care spending occurs because of the outliers in the claim curve. Very large claims, end-of-life and geriatric care account for the great lion's share of costs.
Compared to those things, the deleterious effects of a lack of self-rationing are like spit in rainstorm.
http://www.j-bradford-delong.net/movable_type/
Sorry. Bad link.
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2006/01/why_oh_why_are__10.html
There are also a lot of good discussions behind the link near the bottom for 'Economics: Health'.
Uh, it's really weird to suggest that Wes Clark is anti-capitalist. Nobody's suggesting that we eliminate the profit motive. But the profit motive still operates even without obscene profits.
Those who are more capable of doing certain tasks the country needs done are often called on to carry more of the relevant burden. Young men are better fighters than old men and females; they have to carry a (MUCH MUCH MUCH) larger burden of defending us. The rich (people and corporations) can give up more of their money without real loss; they should be expected to carry a larger burden of funding the country.
Nobody's even vaguely suggesting socialism here. There's plenty of middle ground between plutocracy and socialism.
The point I intended to make in my previous comments is simply that there is in fact a moral aspect to economic policy which stands contrary to the profit motive. For example, if a person needs a certain medication or procedure to survive then those who can supply those medical benefits are in a position which can be, and often is abused by charging exorbitant prices. I don't know what kind of solution is best, but I do know that if we ignore the situation and refuse to consider the moral repurcussions of our actions, then we do so at our own peril.
(Not to suggest a consequentialist view of morality. In fact I wonder if the consequentialist nature of economic decisions might be the root of these moral issues.)
I guess what I'm getting at the difference between the government exercising eminent domain on your house to build a Wal-Mart, and just exercising eminent domain on the Wal-Mart.
I see corporations and the rich as golden gooses. They are smarter than us, or at least can afford lawyers who are. And if an equitable economic climate does not exist, they pick up and go elsewhere.
I often find attacks on capitalism have the subtext that it causes suffering. Of course that can happen, but I see the creation of wealth as good for everyone. As PJ O'Rourke noted when touring the deprivation in the outback of Africa, the only thing worse than being exploited by capitalism is not being exploited by it.
Tom,
I find that to be a strawman. Mostly because not many of us liberals, at least those like me, are arguing against capitalism per se. The point is one of regulation.
Smith's marketplace was not one dominated by large, amoral corporate institutions, but one populated by merchants, entrepreneurs and local business people. The problem comes when corporations become so powerful, and exert disproportionate influence on government, that it ultimately robs the population of a lot of its autonomy, economic and otherwise. When markets fail to improve enough peoples' lives, what good are they? To that extent, business NEEDS regulation.
So the argument isn't for getting rid of capitalism. Far from it. Hell, I'm a salesman myself, so I'm all in for commerce.
The real argument is that capitalism left completely unfettered can cause immense damage, just like a fire, while useful, should not be left to burn out of control.
A lack of regulation leads inevitably to ugly rebound effects like those seen in South America, and those that FDR feared when he came into office in the 30s. There's a reason Gompers, Debs and Thomas were so popular at the time. The patrician Roosevelt probably had one eye on them when formulating the New Deal.
I thought Kevin Phillips' book WEALTH AND DEMOCRACY was a great review of the history of the nexus of money and power. This guy also makes some good arguments:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?userid=Ac0V88VBQj&isbn=1887208046&TXT=Y&itm=1
Also re this:
"I see corporations and the rich as golden gooses. They are smarter than us, or at least can afford lawyers who are. And if an equitable economic climate does not exist, they pick up and go elsewhere."
I say fine. Let 'em go. Just as long as they're not allowed to call on our courts to enforce their contracts, our treasury for subsidies, nor on our armed forces when their interests are threatened.
Please at least acknowledge my central thesis, that corporations, the rich, and any other objects of handy derision are essentially not subjects of moral concern.
The pension plans of both individuals and unions depend on their stock holdings. In fact, the holding of stock is an essential difference between Marx' (and Adam Smith's) day and our own.
The management of "big corporations" often cuts corners in pursuit of profit, but in the end, we are them and they are us.
And since 80+% of American millionaires are first-generation, not products of inherited wealth, they are us, too.
So, after we cut through who them and us are, we could talk.
Put your money in the morally admirable Whole Foods, Inc. Just be aware that although their execs are on a "salary cap," they still get stock option bonanzas. And they're happily non-union to boot.
Accept smaller returns on your investment, too. Your pension check that much smaller. While you're at it, pay more at the mom & pop shop for the same item as what's over at Wal-Mart.
I don't have a moral problem with any of that. I think it's really cool. But neither will I condemn someone who chooses a different course for the well-being of his or her family.
That Invisible Hand is a bitch, and tends to brush away all moralizing. And if our regulating gets to be too odious, the Black Market is always happy to rise up. Not only are the rich smarter than us, but the poor, too.
I apologize in advance that I will neither be buying nor reading Kevin Phillips' book, LC. First of all, the odds of someone spending their hard-earned coin on a book that will nauseate them, even based on the recommendation of someone whom they respect, is a little less likely than Philosoraptor reading that Bible he gleefully snarfed compliments of the Gideons at the Holiday Inn on Rte. 78 in Murfreesboro, NC on October 28, 1997 and that now sits next to a copy of Dianetics on the left side of the second shelf from the bottom of that bookcase next to bathroom.
(Yes, Mr. "Smith,"
we were and are watching.)
I was subjected to the thoughts of Kevin Phillips for the better part of three years every Sunday in the Los Angeles Times opinion pages.
There's a reason few besides you and me have ever heard of him, and why he can't even crack a column inch of one of America's most lefty papers.
Let's say he's not quite in the league of the timeless Adam Smith or even Karl Marx.
But I do invite you to try again, LC, preferably in your own words.
"The management of "big corporations" often cuts corners in pursuit of profit, but in the end, we are them and they are us."
This is the crux of where I think you're misguided. If we take the premise that 'the market' will be the great arbitrator, the central failing is that, unlike government, I have no guaranteed power or rights to lay claim on it. In fact, power over the market is proportional to one's own economic resources, unlike government, which is at least premised on the idea of one man one vote, inalienable rights and the balance of power in the Constitution.
The market, taken as a whole in neither moral or immoral, it's amoral; there is every indication though that, given the chance, the greedy will seek to manipulate the market for their own benefit, with others suffering huge misfortune.
Neither Adam Smith nor Marx had the benefit of seeing the period from 1890-1929 in the U.S. If you weren't so obsessed with citing old texts, brilliant as they are, you might realize that the hindsight of history adds empirical data that can't be ignored, something which even smart people like Smith would admit.
Markets are not perfect, and need rules and regulation to function properly, just as every other segment of society needs the same to prevent anarchy. I believe you can trace a straight line from deregulated markets to market failures.
Let's take the 90s stock boom as an example. Whatever happens, market purists argue, it cannot possibly be the fault of the market. Never mind the fact that one of the very measures taken by corporations in the '90s to ensure that market rationality prevailed--the granting of stock options to top executives--is the single greatest culprit in the crash: Markets never fail. Other parties, namely government, must be responsible.
In a certain sense, this is correct. Government was responsible, because politicians of both parties permitted the loosening of rules, some of which still exist, such as the absurd proposition that you can value something as X for tax purposes, but report its value as Y to shareholders. Hell, they even fight giving control over the corporation TO ITS OWNERS, the shareholders; they have to fight tooth and nail just to be able to be heard during proxy sessions.
So yes, things like pension funds (as well as 401ks) are dependent on capital market values, but that makes the point all the more important that government set and enforce rules to establish a fair and transparent marketplace.
And I'm not willing to wait until the day when enough people figure out that they're buying stuff from manufacturers using slave labor for the market to tilt in the direction of more honorable manufacturers. Labor was treated like garbage for decades in this country, and it never changed until we instituted labor laws. What you're saying amounts to this: those big multi-national corporations are so strong, and can commit blatant economic blackmail, that we should just allow them to whatever they please until enough people find the time and information to collectively shun their products and they change their ways or get replaced by a more reputable competitor. I got a big problem with that, because by the time it happens, lots of damage will have been done.
There's also the problem of externalities and distortions of the market, such as valuable commodities like oil being so embedded in the economy. By the time the market corrects this, who knows where we'll be? That's why government is necessary to create pilot programs and/or incentives for alternatives. In fact, as the price of oil goes ever higher, the incentive is in exactly in the wrong direction - toward greater investment in exploration, drilling and refinement. The market by itself will not devote the resources until there is the perception of profit in the short term.
Oh, and now we're measuring intellect by the ability to be published in the newspaper editorial section? So people like Jonah Goldberg, Donald Luskin and Richard Cohen are just misunderstood geniuses?
You sound like Adam Smith, except you would replace the Invisible Hand with our heavy one.
But as previously noted, per Smith, both the rich and poor are smarter than us. "Laissez-faire" is not a philosophy, only an acknowledgement of that fact.
(After long exposure to him, I find Phillips a shallow thinker. The other fellows you mention have flashes of great worth.
You can see for yourself what Smith thought, rather than the popular misrepresentations of him. Unlike Phillips' masterwork, Wealth of Nations is here free, now.)
"...corporations and the rich are smarter than us..."
Har har har... Good one.
Anyway, again, Tom: you keep talking about eliminating capitalism--NOBODY HERE IS ARGUING FOR THAT. It's a straw man.
There are more options than (a) socialism and (b) unbridled plutocracy.
Ditto Winston.
The whole point is that someone or something needs to set the ground rules and provide the infrastructure on which free markets are not only possible but can thrive; government is the only institution that has ever been able to do this. Libertarians would set this boundary low. European liberals would set it high. It's really more of a continuum than a set of disconnected points.
And of course I sound a lot like Smith, but I don't have a fetish. Blind worshipping of Smith's (admittedly huge) contribution to political economy is akin to stopping at Newton when studying physics.
I've read WofN and TMS, as well as Malthus, Ricardo, Barro, Marx, Keynes, Stiglitz and Friedman. There have evolved since Smith's time whole new fields like Behavioral Economics, pioneered by Kahneman and Tversky.
Innovations like derivatives have been created which change the dynamics of the markets, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. Central banks set the cost of money. Currency is no longer pegged to gold or silver. The FDIC prevents a loss of faith in the banking system. I could go on and on.
And on the larger point, there is a place for the private sector and a place for the public sector. The same people who don't trust government to deliver a letter trust it to deliver nuclear bombs.
There is a cost to policing the free market to keep everyone honest and the market *free*. Externalities are not just an occasional deviation from what is otherwise true in free market theory - their existence is embedded in the theory itself. Without a government to pay for externalities, there would be no market. This was also Smith's justification for progressive taxation - those who benefit from the system should have to pay for it.
Any intellectually honest economist will tell you that there are things called 'public goods' that by their very nature the market cannot handle efficiently. Public goods are goods or services that have benefits beyond the individuals who directly receive them. National defense and law enforcement are the classic examples of this, but the case can easily be made that healthcare fits the criteria as well. The most obvious externality associated with health care, though not the only one, is that we are less likely to get sick if the people around us are healthy.
Other examples of externalities are the health- and environment-related costs of burning of fossil fuels. Kindly explain to me how the market itself can impose costs on automakers who make inefficient cars or industry that pollutes. Could the market, for example, have created the higher fuel standards imposed by the Carter administration in the 70s? Would we now be in a better or worse position geostrategically, environmentally and economically if we had kept those standards in place? Do you really think we'd be in Iraq, for example?
Of course there are trade-offs like decreased safety from smaller cars and the temporary loss of jobs. But that's why we have engineers (like those who redesigned SUVs with a lower front to minimize damage in head-on collisions) and economists.
As far as the efficient distribution of goods and services, private industry is more efficient when competition (and government-provided infrastructure) is present. But less efficient when there is no true competition. For the former, look at the high tech world, where Moore's Law has never failed. For the latter, look at our obese energy ogilopoly cabals, which have innovated nothing in 100 years. You won't even find an energy company willing to gain market share by offering clean restrooms.
If our energy industries were as competitive and innovative as our high techs, fuel would cost 25 cents a gallon, provide 100 miles per gallon and clean the air rather than pollute it.
Government has many weaknesses, but at least, when structured properly, it's relatively transparent and accountable. Monopolies and oligopolies are not. When was the last time the benefits of private ownership lowered your cable bill? Kindly ompare and contrast with the prices and features of DVD players or digital cameras.
Since it's quite a bit, it's all I have to say on this now. I have given example after example of how government is necessary to correct failings in the marketplace and account for externalities, and your answer boils down to "But what about Adam Smith? Aren't those big powerful corporations just dreamy? I wouldn't think of questioning their wisdom."
I don't remember saying all that. Certainly Adam Smith does not. I do find Gen. Clark's ideas about "harnessing" private enterprise for the "public good" as statist, and I don't think that's what America wants.
I could be wrong. Obviously some of America does.
Hey I could be wrong too. Have been MANY times.
I just have a feeling that what Clark wants to do, which based on my reading of his more detailed proposals I agree with, will be distorted and incorrectly received by the public at large.
If it isn't, I think that people will like what they see. Polling based on issue positions seems to indicate that the Democrats' positions are shared by more of the populace. Doesn't necessarily make them right, but it would make them popular if elections were based on ideas and issues.
None of that means that I don't respect your opinion. I do and I think on this we'll just have to agree to disagree.
And if I misrepresented your argument, I apologize.
Well, I defend Smith because he's a far more intuitive and informal thinker than he's given credit for. The starting point for his "inquiry" (in the subtitle of Wealth of Nations) is always human nature. Unlike Marx' "manifesto," he does not contemplate "educating" man out of it, nor the possibility of ever doing so.
It's easy to see failings in everything; the failings of the capitalistic "system" are the same as the failings of man himself. But genius, and Smith's genius, is being able to see the good. The good in man, even in the material sense per Marx' own ontological vocabulary, lies in his dynamism. He is at his best and most productive when he is free.
Government is indeed the guarantor of man's freedom. And the anti-monopolist protects one producer from the carnivorousness of another, or the public (and the pursuit of excellence) from a cabal of producers. You write:
As far as the efficient distribution of goods and services, private industry is more efficient when competition (and government-provided infrastructure) is present. But less efficient when there is no true competition.
That is essential Adam Smith.
I object to Marx' reduction of the human equation to materialism as well as his historicism in seeing the concentration of power at the beginning of the industrial revolution as the steady and essential state of capitalism. That concentration was inevitable per Smith, but so was the public's self-defense against it that quickly took the form of government regulation.
So Marx and his historicism are dead, mostly. Still, the "harnessing" I object to in Clark's speech is at the heart of a philosophical divide and is by no means dead. It is cannibalistic, attempting to co-opt already existing organic and spontaneous creators of wealth in the name of "efficiency."
Matters of life and death bring a unique amount of focus to things like the Manhattan Project, but absent that urgency, man will make a zillion calculations on what to work on and how hard, and how it will profit him. Adam Smith merely identifies what is. The abstractions of the ought have little power in the real world: if you're anything like me, you do what you ought sparingly, and with little enthusiasm, hardly the model of efficiency. The irony lies in that the prophets of efficiency become obstacles to it.
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