The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations was recognized as a landmark of human thought upon its publication in 1776. As the first scientific argument for the principles of political economy, it is the point of departure for all subsequent economic thought. Smith's theories of capital accumulation, growth, and secular change, among others, continue to be influential in modern economics. This reprint of Edwin Cannan's definitive 1904 edition of The Wealth of Nations includes Cannan's famous introduction, notes, and a full index, as well as a new preface written especially for this edition by the distinguished economist George J. Stigler. Mr. Stigler's preface will be of value for anyone wishing to see the contemporary relevance of Adam Smith's thought.
Stats for nerds
92recommend
666mentions
405people
2007–2026years
16% recommend82% neutral1% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Software engineers need to grow up, at the turn of the century when software was starting to remake the world, they developed an enormous conceit and started believing that the world revolved around their work and they were going to shape it.
It doesn't. The world revolves around economics and politics, just like it always did. It took a decade or two for established institutions to catch up and re-assert control, but catch up they did. In the end that 10-20 years was so brief that in a few generations it'll be entirely forgotten.
Now during that time who knows? Maybe software engineers could have held their ground and used their leverage to influence the political and economic system and turn it into something better. Did they do this? 99% did not. Instead, they coveted cushy jobs at Big Tech where they gave up their freedom and their ability to disrupt anything in exchange for security, and resigned themselves to trying to sound smart in blog posts where they produce grandiose but ultimately sophomoric opinion articles about their industry. No one with actual power could care less about these articles as they follow the rules of power, not the rules of engineering. They own the IP. They decide what "owning IP" even means. Their economy of IP is essentially one of monopolies. That is why everything is basically shit. Read Zero to One and perhaps a few chapters out of Wealth of Nations. The full explanation of "why our software isn't 10x better" will be laid out for you in a weekend.
The software engineers gave up their agency for a salary. Hey, that's fine. That's what 99% of all engineers in human history did. They've gone to work for a government or a big corporation, and let the guys with power keep making the rules. You just did what other engineers did because you ultimately needed to pay bills, take care of your families, etc. You're no different. But software engineers, pretending you are is getting old.
The rebel path where you actually make your own shit is still there. You can start a company. Or a nonprofit. You can donate your time toward building, marketing, and lobbying the government for something better. Because god knows all three of these are needed in spades. Without evidence of that though, honestly I'm tired of software engineers proclaiming something new from Big Tech is going to change the world. It's not. Innovation alone will solve nothing. The guys in charge have put their feet down and you work for them now. A revolution will be required in a pretty literal sense of the term to change this. Using the latest Anthropic models harder isn't going to do shit.
I'm an engineer too. Let's grow up already. Let's either get serious about our conceit that tech can improve the world, or let's resign ourselves to being just like every other engineering profession in the world, getting paid well to obediently build what the investor class tells us to build. You can't have it both ways. Choose your destiny and accept it.
(Fyi - serial bootstrapped open source adjacent founder here, and I made my own decision 15 years ago, one way or another, I'm dying free.)
- It's not an oxymoron: just a cryptid. Read The Wealth of Nations.
- Cantillon's essay is not terribly difficult of a read and the "Cantillon Effect" has to be the least interesting part of it. It and Smiths Wealth of Nations are both free on the web and well worth the read.
- There's a good book on this topic by a Scottish philosopher: An Inquiry into the Nature and Cauſes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, LL. D. and F. R. S, formerly Profeſſor of Moral Philoſophy in the Univerſity of Glasgow.
- You misunderstand both my premise and basic economics.
I would recommend reading the original Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, which forms the basis of modern capitalism.
https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
It's clear, analytical, and mostly correct.
Chapter XI, The Rent of Land, is pretty quaint at this point, but gives a compelling counterpoint to your argument. It begins:
"Rent, considered as the price paid for the use of land, is naturally the highest which the tenant can afford to pay in the actual circumstances of the land. In adjusting the terms of the lease, the landlord endeavours to leave him no greater share of the produce than what is sufficient to keep up the stock from which he furnishes the seed, pays the labour, and purchases and maintains the cattle and other instruments of husbandry, together with the ordinary profits of farming stock in the neighbourhood. This is evidently the smallest share with which the tenant can content himself, without being a loser, and the landlord seldom means to leave him any more."
The basic analysis of the chapter can be translated from 1780-era industries into 2025-era industries, and explains much of how housing markets work.
If you would like contemporary data, I would recommend looking at the impact on the price of housing of European cities which offered nationalized below-market housing.
A central fallacy in most of the libertarian space stems from the difference between industries which are not zero-sum (e.g. manufacturing, software, writing, etc.), and rent-collecting ones (e.g. literal rent, much of finance, mining, etc.). Here, I use "rent" as economics jargon, not common meaning. You can look it up.
Being used to operating in domains like software -- which has literally zero marginal cost -- there is a natural tendency to want to extrapolate the same dynamics to other industries.
However, economics works out differently in industries like that. For the most part, if there is a finite amount of stuff, it makes sense to divide it fairly to avoid dynamics like that. If you're producing stuff, it makes sense to divide it according to how much you contribute.
- You should really read The Wealth of Nations before you talk about currencies needing "backed" or "intrinsic" value. It's not in the definition of money at all.
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