Smith Response 7/13

The very first thing I noticed about today's selection was Smith's comment about the dependency between masters and slaves. He claims that masters could survive for years on sale of their stock, but a workman could scarcely survive a month, at best. This is related to us right after a passage regarding the manner in which masters can conspire together to lower wages, while workmen cannot unionize by law (in his time). Now we tend to dismiss this claim in American society today with the rise of unions, but his second claim, about dependency, seems to hold. Although we can certainly survive longer than a month unemployed with today's social structure, if we redefine his terms slightly to make "survive" equal to today's living wage, we'll see that the many masters can indeed survive indefinitely, while workmen cannot. For example, Bill Gates can survive an infinity of lifetimes on his cash supply, but a drone at Microsoft couldn't go more than a year. So, Smith's principle still rings true today.

Another point Smith raised which I found interesting was the fact that industry can improve and production can increase without large increases in wage. He cites the example of how North America has higher wages than England, despite less production. This is also fascinating, that a country with less output can have higher wages. It's also interesting that the summer and winter wages are so different, but this makes much more sense in a society without our modern technology. Nevertheless, my father, a landscaping company owner, suffers greatly in the winter, so this can definitely still apply today. This is also true for construction.

Continuing onwards (Sorry this is late, work kept me for most of the evening.) I found it very intriguing that Smith claims labor to be our one "foundation of all other property". This seems to be true, as when a man has nothing, he still has the skill in his hands. Neveretheless, this implies that people who have 'old money' are so very far removed from the original dexterity that gave them their wealth.

I also noticed that Smith is very right in his notions about injury to property. He claims that if I hurt another man, I gain no benefit personally, but if I damage another's property, I gain an equal benefit to that man's loss. This seems right, at least in the case of theft. Nevertheless, this creates a void - where there is private property, there must be a magistracy of some kind to protect it. Otherwise theft would be rampant as the passions of men can sometimes provoke them into theft or malice.