Paul Atkins Misreads Adam Smith and the American Founding
SEC chair Paul Atkins claims the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations share a common conviction, using this to justify deregulation, especially in crypto. But the evidence contradicts him: Jefferson wrote the Declaration without consulting Smith, and both Smith and the Founders supported public oversight of finance. Atkins's crypto agenda, favoring politically connected firms, undermines the very principles he invokes.
Markets retain their legitimacy only when the public believes the rules apply equally to everyone.
- shermantanktop
Is there someone who could be convinced by this article, but who doesn't already agree with it?
I'm discouraged that public discourse about ideas has become so partisan that it ends up being partisan to express an opinion that touches on the most important things that are happening.
- rjurney
This was number one, I wish it still was. The founders railed against precisely the kind of aristocratic, authoritarian corruption this administration represents.
- vannevar
Sadly, economics is not yet a science, but still mostly a hodgepodge of philosophy, superstition, and politics, where the fragile beginnings of scientific inquiry and real science are regularly run over by louder, dumber voices shrieking about "free markets" (an oxymoron) and "supply side" (a bald rationalization for providing welfare to the wealthy). Millions of people know Adam Smith only by his "invisible hand" analogy, which appears only once in the entire book and in a completely different context from that which it is usually quoted---he was talking about the tendency of business to buy local because of familiarity, not making some broad claim about the self-regulation of markets.