Inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations

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1. benreesmanAug 2025
   I don't know why you're getting downvoted. You clearly read Smith and the downvoters clearly didn't. An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of The Wealth of Nations is like an anti-rentier pamphlet in most places.

   Ignore the haters, keep being right about books.

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2. alfiedotwtfSep 2022
   "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith.

   Before that I never really thought deeply about economics, but afterwards, it's almost like you have a deeper sense of predictions on cause-and-effect... there will always be second and third order effects (and higher harmonics so to speak).

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3. e_f_rodriguesAug 2020
   Great summary. Probably good follow on reads would be the classical "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith and "The Competitive Advantage of Nations" by Michael Porter.

   Just subscribed!

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4. frabbitMar 2020
   The Bible (Old and New Testaments), An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, The Constitution of the United States of America and Jonathan Livingstone Seagull.
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5. dredmorbiusOct 2016
   First, you're moving goalposts (the initial question was about how or why noncompetes are anti-worker, anti-competitive, and/or anti-innovative), and doing so without acknowledging the point. Chalk it up to my own history of arguing on the intartubes, but I find that tedious and generally a Bad Sign of things to come.

   Secondly: my second point answers my first.

   Markets don't manifest in individual transactions, they manifest as the emergent behaviour of multiple transactions. As others have noted, setting bounds to what can be traded away has proven necessary, empirically, to avoid winding up in a highly non-optimal equilibrium point.

   If you're interested in ethical ramifications, I recommend two excellent works on the topic: A Theory of Moral Sentiments and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

   Even that treatment is unsatisfactory as it neglects considerations of short-term vs. long-term trade-offs.

   Your example is contrived in that it essentially poses a Sophie's Choice: give up condition of long-term viability A or because of my superior position in establishing and enforcing terms, give up condition of long-term viability B.

   The optimum condition would be for no artificial constraint on A or B imposed by the employer.

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6. dredmorbiusMay 2016
   Oddly enough, your statements are directly contradicted by the story. It was under a monopoly -- a national monoply, regulated closely by the federal government -- that the system was, in this case, far better:

   "AT&T was the exclusive service provider in the industry, and costs for inmates were comparable for similar services outside. But in the 1980s, an antitrust agreement pulled the Bell System apart. Meanwhile, America’s incarceration rate was booming, driven by the war on drugs and more stringent sentencing guidelines.

   "With AT&T in pieces, upstart phone providers saw dollar signs in the bevy of new "customers" waiting to be served. First, other major telecommunications companies, such as MCI and Sprint, moved in. Then came the specialists — dedicated outfits, like Pay Tel Communications and Global TelLink, willing to appeal to the specific needs of the corrections industry. Providing communications to a literally captive audience was highly profitable, and as these companies grew, they popularized a new kind of contract with local governments. These agreements hinged on an idea formally known as the "site commission contract," though critics often describe them using another word: kickback."

   "Free market" doesn't by itself sprinkle Magickal Pixiy Duste over all problems and make them go away. A guy wrote a long book about this once, and how unregulated laissez-faire markets tended strongly to special interests and plutonomy. He was named Smith, title is

   An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations*. Recommended reading.

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