Free Market: The History of an Idea

Jacob Soll - Free Market: The History of an Idea
Prof Jacob Soll will join the Rhodes Center to discuss his new book "Free Market: the History of an Idea"
From a MacArthur “Genius,” an intellectual history of the free market, from ancient Rome to the twenty-first century
After two government bailouts of the US economy in less than twenty years, free market ideology is due for serious reappraisal. In Free Market, Jacob Soll details how we got to this current crisis, and how we can find our way out by looking to earlier iterations of free market thought. Contrary to popular narratives, early market theorists believed that states had an important role in building and maintaining free markets. But in the eighteenth century, thinkers insisted on free markets without state intervention, leading to a tradition of ideological brittleness. That tradition only calcified in the centuries that followed.
Tracing the intellectual evolution of the free market from Cicero to Milton Friedman, Soll argues that we need to go back to the origins of free market ideology in order to truly understand it-and to develop new economic concepts to face today’s challenges.
Jacob Soll is University Professor and a professor of philosophy, history, and accounting at the University of Southern California. The author of The Reckoning and The Information Master, Soll is the recipient of many prestigious awards, including the MacArthur “Genius” grant. He lives in Los Angeles.

[@briandenzer]

Attempting to debunk economic myths may be one of the most important tasks of our era to save the planet.

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

This gets harder and harder as people who (understandably) distrust the current economic orthodoxy turn to things like Austrian economics as an “outsider” theory. It’s like they are trying to debunk economic myths with other previously debunked myths. It definitely gets frustrating.

[@21dolphin123]

Possibly one of the most interesting and important lectures given this decade.

[@evanmcarthur3067]

Not an understatement! I just book this book on 22nd Can’t put it down, in fact I’m reading every chapter 2x!! The people Professor Mark Blythe recommends are awesome thinkers 🎉😂😢

[@tonywilson4713]

@@evanmcarthur3067 I'd also recommend the 4 lectures that Damon Silver just gave at UCL IIPP on neoliberalism. He goes right through the history of it and how its been so destructive. Most of his examples are British because UCL is in London but those examples work anywhere neoliberalism is practiced. I'm Australian and its crushing us right now.

[@evanmcarthur478]

@@tonywilson4713 Great recommendation!| I just finished the series, giving a second listen now, cant believe I overlooked Professor Silver!! Thanks again!

[@johnsmith1474]

An unqualified, monumental compliment like this is pure dreck. It's a projection of your ego without real value.

[@robbliss9149]

Around 19:340 Soll quotes Smith as saying that artificers and manufacturers do not produce a net profit and that on farming does. If you read the quote in context, Smith is presenting the French Physiocrats' theory. When he finishes discussing their theory he writes "The capital error of this system, however, seems to lie in its representing the class of artificers, manufacturers and merchants, as altogether barren and unproductive."

[@jesseb4503]

yes

[@dangle3392]

This man has shattered my view on economics.

[@davidwilkie9551]

So that was a discovery, they, the Lairds, sent loaded ships into the Irish sea to sink, and my ancestors made it all the way to Tasmania.., filled with eternal resentment. Very edifying lecture. Thanks.

[@SeanONilbud]

We are contaminated with the bootlicks who took the english shilling to this day.

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

I always love pointing out the context that Adam Smith was writing in when speaking to someone who believes in the Austrian school. He was writing in a monarchy, complaining about the monarchy. When he says “the government”, or “the public”, or “the sovereign”, he is talking about the monarchy. The Austrians just took his complaints about “the government” (aka monarchy) and applied them with no modifications to the current government system (aka democracy), as if there was zero real economic distinction between the two. I knew that part but I didn’t know how many errors and contradictions he made on top of that. I would never criticize him as being ill-informed or unintelligent, but he was someone writing with a particular bias in a time before they had access to the amounts of data we have today. He’s not perfect, and he’s not an idiot. He provided some important aspects of economical understanding, but he also completely whiffed on a bunch of things. The same thing could be said for most economists… it’s just that nobody builds a shrine to them. Either way I will definitely be buying this book!

[@robbliss9149]

Parliament not monarchy.

[@TheCommonS3Nse]

@@robbliss9149 I know that. He wasn’t talking about the British Parliament. He was writing about how the British system was better than the French system because the French had an absolute monarch whereas the British had a more representative system. The Austrians took his complaints about the French monarch and applied them to any government system, which completely misrepresents what he was arguing for.

[@j.r.w.devisser6030]

Wonderful book session!

[@klauskondrup4302]

Thanks. Enlightening, not least on the Enlightenment! Gotta read the whole book, though. Damn it. Thought I was past that.....🙂

[@ivanferraz8914]

He confirmed what I've learnt in History classes when I was just 12 years old. Maybe, the economist Mariana Mazzucatto talks aboout the myth of free market in a more economic approach, but also desmistifying it like he did briliiantly in this lecture in an Economic History manner.

[@tonywilson4713]

Have you watched the lectures that Damon Silver just gave at UCL IIPP on neoliberalism. He goes right through the history of it and how its been so destructive. Most of his examples are British because UCL is in London but those examples work anywhere neoliberalism is practiced. I'm Australian and its crushing us right now.

[@ivanferraz8914]

@@tonywilson4713 thank you! I will look for Damon Silver lecture.

[@tonywilson4713]

@@ivanferraz8914 There's 4 of them and they are all worth taking time. I have watched them each at least twice. Its the equivalent of a full semester of work and there's some amazing information in them.

[@MrMarinus18]

The biggest thing though is that we have to break through this economics 101 thinking that more government=bad and less government=good. It's really a major roadblock to solving the many social and economic problems facing us today. That government involvement in the economy is a negative is treated almost as a fact by many.

[@tonywilson4713]

@@MrMarinus18 Again like the other comment you're 100% right. What you just described is part of the Chicago School neoliberal ideology that Reagan summed up with his famous "Government isn't the solution. Government is the problem." What Regan and Thatcher did was replace government decision makers with consultants. Go check Marianna Mazzucato on the subject of consultants.

[@clumsydad7158]

Fantastic and semi-mind blowing talk; only semi- as many of us already knew about the myths. But I had never heard of Colbert so that was revelatory. Also great discussion on the England-France economic competitions of the 17th and 18th centuries, something most of us Americans forget/take for granted. Also the now well documented role of state spending, programs, and infrastructure in forming functioning markets, and how later the 'free market' mantras and myths are used by developing nations to prey on colonial or third world humans. As you say, economics has washed its hands of its own history. Social sciences like psychology, sociology and history readily acknowledge their errors and limited views/understanding of the past, but economics is strident in defending a narrow and mythical point of view deeply embedded in bias, power, and privilege. As Mr. Soll says, it's only the beginning of our understanding (and creation) of systems of wealth, distribution, and sustainability ... civilization has yet only begun - we'll just have to see how painful our corrective lessons will be.

[@FrankRomanyshyn]

G*

[@gordondavies7773]

Colbert was a polymath genius. Many of his decisions still apply in France, for instance, a minor detail, his banning of fishing at night.He also reformed French forestry to provide wood to build a fleet, introduced a welfare system for seamen and fishermen linked to an obligation to spend time serving in the Navy, set up systems to train engineers and artisans...

[@clumsydad7158]

yo, Rhodes Center peeps, I think it would be great to mention in the description Dr. Soll's contrast/analysis between Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Adam Smith (those two names are not found in the summary above). This is the main content of his talk. Thank you !!

[@robbliss9149]

at 10:00: Soll claims that the Dutch East India Company (VOC) was the first publicly traded multinational company (whatever that means) The VOC was founded in 1602, the British East India Company was chartered in 1600 as a joint stock company. I doubt how "publicly traded" the shares were. They were probably privately traded.

[@richardsawicki8521]

"He got caught.. " Famous last words? I HOPE NOT ! Looking forward to Jackson's next episode ! That WILL be a relief !

[@ericocccams5865]

before the neolithic, the nature of hunter gathers humans which was the norm, was that of egalitarianism, with minimal material possessions yet a sense of "affluent minimalism." They operated through a "gift economy" based on sharing and trust rather than reciprocal obligation, basically indebtedness did not exist in the hunter gatherer psyche. the transition into agriculture, which is the primary behavioral phenomenon of the neolithic, led to scarcity, surplus, social stratification, and the concept of property ownership. It codified the basis of modern political economy - property, capital, labor, government, law, etc. Agriculture generated reliance on a few food sources rather than wild abundance. This allowed for stockpiling of resources and inequality. It created the concept of poverty.

[@Izquierda]

The whole hunter-gatherer to agriculture narrative may be all wrong for all we know. There's some interesting ideas in archeology and anthropology about early humans having done both agriculture and hunting-gathering at the same time or cyclically. Some even go as far as to say that agriculture predates hunting-gathering, which may have emerged as a common practice among those who were left out of agriculture or during periods when agriculture was not viable. So basically what we consider "human" evolved together with the practice of agriculture, through a process that may remain relatively obscure to scientific knowledge for a long time or maybe forever, but it kinda makes sense, maybe even more than the idea that somewhat humans made this jump to agriculture (no one knows exactly how you jump from hunting gathering to agriculture, but it is easier to see how the reverse can happen).

[@davidpayant8684]

Sorry, Weber was not about Protestant “work ethic”. He argued that Northern Europe had a civic world view. This led to a new form of social organization. Corporations, which are groups of unrelated business people, could form in Northern Europe because of universal values. This contrasts with Southern Europe where people would not form businesses except with family members. This was characteristic of the old Roman Empire. (Exception Venice).

[@clumsydad7158]

interesting; yes Mr. Soll's treatment of Weber in this lecture (probably due to time constraints) was a heavy gloss over

[@paolosarpi8069]

Because companies were invented in Italy? Economic history 101: the Medici bank had partners. Multi parter firms + accounting emerge in the late 1200s in Northern Italy. Weber got it wrong. Venice? Come on. Tuscany. See de Roover and so many others.

[@alicianieto2822]

I had higher hopes when he mentioned that he was going to go into the anlgo-dutch victory narrative, but I'll take what I can get. Good talk. It is still kind of funny to see someone having to work so hard just to say "yeah, those powers that got their culture everywhere were strong and narratives based on religious exceptionalism should be reviewed" Kinda worrying that we are still there

[@paolosarpi8069]

Yes!!!

[@swaguelclemens9164]

Who would've thought that in an era defined by government centralization and the extension of state authority, the state would play a major role in guiding economics!

[@AndersonThad]

Going all in on T-shirts.

[@clumsydad7158]

and by the way Mr. Soll, crypto is still a $1.23 T market ... just sayin'

[@PAPADRACOLIN]

@@clumsydad7158 yeah let’s show me just how liquid that 1 trillion market is, it’s a bubble and idiots like you think it’s a legitimate market. Crypto is virtually unfungible yer it’s original purpose was to be a fungible asset. Vast majority of crypto millionaires and billionaires can’t get their money moved to real money, that money is as real as blackstone’s real estate portfolio valuations lmao. Crypto becomes real when the international banking system accepts it, which basically means it has failed its mandate

[@robbliss9149]

At 16:36 Soll misinterprets what Smith is saying. Smith is not saying that “you can get rich farming”. He is saying that farming is more labor intensive than alternative uses of capital. I.e. “quantity of labor” is not the same as “return on capital”. Seems obvious.

[@cameronmclennan942]

Really interesting talk, but it seems like he didn't really search very widely for similar histories. I read the Norwegian economist Erik Reinert's "How Rich Countries Got Rich ... and Why Poor Countries Stay Poor" 15 years ago and learnt many of the same developments. From the blurb: "In this refreshingly revisionist history, Erik Reinert shows how rich countries developed through a combination of government intervention, protectionism, and strategic investment, rather than through free trade. Reinert suggests that this set of policies in various combinations has driven successful development from Renaissance Italy to the modern Far East. Yet despite its demonstrable sucess, orthodox developemt economists have largely ignored this approach and insisted instead on the importance of free trade. Reinart shows how the history of economics has long been torn between the continental Renaissance tradition on one hand and the free market theories of English and later American economies on the other. Our economies were founded on protectionism and state activism-look at China today-and could only later afford the luxury of free trade. When our leaders come to lecture poor countries on the right road to riches they do so in almost perfect ignorance of the real history of national affluence."

[@paolosarpi8069]

Maybe read the book and see that he thanks Reinert?

[@cameronmclennan942]

@@paolosarpi8069 yeah, fair enough. Since writing that comment I found that info. What prompted my comment was that during this talk he says that 'nobody has told this story before'

[@paolosarpi8069]

@@cameronmclennan942 There are many resemblances to Reinert's story, though this one seems different with Cicero and Colbert.

[@cameronmclennan942]

@@paolosarpi8069 yeah, I recognise the characters are different, and that's interesting for sure, but the themes of government investment, protectionism and strategic investment, rather than free markets are the same

[@kennethtaylor964]

@@cameronmclennan942Remember, he is a historian. So, his interest is in how ideas develop. He is not doing economic theory. He is interested in who develops the ideas and their circumstances.

[@conors4430]

If you close your eyes, the host sounds like a young Sean Connery

[@conors4430]

@@PurpleDawn3 he is Scottish mate, use your ears. And there’s no such thing as sounding like a Jew, that’s like saying someone sounds like a Christian

[@marybusch6182]

It was interesting to see that the bankers head such substantial wealth in northern italy. Back to the 1300s. And the jaquard loom may have been created in italt and not france. Just thinking.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

1:03:22 Cambridge has a full professor of philosophy who does free-market debunking as part of her work as a serious, philosopher of social science, whose brain hasn’t been poisoned by dusty archives-Prof. Alexandrova. You Prof. Soll should do a survey of the economic revolution underway and talk to contemporary post-analytic philosophers of social science along with critical remedial work.

[@Henry-teach-Chinese-in-jokes]

I’ve spent about 100,000 hours studying English humor and Western culture, and about 100,000 hours studying Chinese culture. My native language is Chinese. I teach Chinese in humorous way and with cute pictures. Hope somebody recommend my videos to those who want to learn Chinese

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Ok this is outlandish and I’m a fan of C. and Post-Chicago exonomics and we’ll read in 19th century heterodox exonomics.

[@danielsykes7558]

Anyone have gloria's book title?

[@danielsykes7558]

Glory Liu Adam Smith's America

[@Floxflow]

Interesting

[@aerobique]

"competition" MEANS *conflict* so, a culture of conflict, is why ~everything "seems" increasingly dysfunctional, systemically. because it is.

[@clumsydad7158]

there's no easy way, and the struggle never ends, but getting rid of myths and dealing with our human situation on this one earth is a good start, and we are not there yet

[@thomasjamison2050]

Speaking of the British Empire and free trade, I think it is important to try and understand to what extent talking about free trade was actually used in the process of building the Empire. For example, to this day in US history, particularly related to the Civil War, there is a lot of nonsensical talk about tariffs. To a great extent much of this is actually due to British propaganda. The Brits made of a point of telling the cotton growers of the South that they could be very much richer if the British didn't have to have tariffs on imported raw cotton, but they blamed the existence of British tariffs on cotton to American tariffs on British goods. It was always a focus of British political propaganda to foment trouble among the states, and the idea that Britain might have stepped into the American Civil War actually started with this British propaganda. Of course, the idea that Britain would ever not put a tariff on cotton was idiotic, as the British government would still need the income whether or not Americans had protective tariffs on British goods. Just how sincere really was Adam Smith when he was writing to entertain the Duke of Buccleuch? BTW, one of my ancestors was once the groundskeeper for the Duke of Buccleuch. Sadly my ancestor was killed at Quatre Bras while riding with the Scot's Greys. Fortunately for me he had already sired his offspring by that point.

[@psikeyhackr6914]

Where does planned obsolescence fit into the Free Market? What is NDP and where does the Depreciation of durable consumer goods fit into the equation. Karl Marx mentioned depreciation 35 times in Das Kapital but consumers did not buy automobiles and refrigerators and microwave ovens before 1884. Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations contains "read, write and account" multiple times. So why hasn't accounting been mandatory in the schools since Sputnik?

[@JohnAllenRoyce]

Maybe the biggest problem is that people WANT to believe in a free market, it's just so much easier and self-justifying and lets them flow with the establishment culture. This professor is saying excellent, important and well researched things ... but folks just don't want that reality. Not sure what it says, really, but at the time of this comment 10/4/23 over 38,000 people have viewed the lecture and only 856 of them "liked" it. wtf.

[@RippoZer0]

Holy shit

[@clumsydad7158]

... moral philosophy in action !

[@cinemaipswich4636]

There has never been a free market. The role of corporations is "Destroy the Competition". Limiting choice is what they want, on their way to being a monopoly/duopoly.

[@defenstrator4660]

And the goal of government is monopoly as well. The difference is that the government can eliminate its competitors with violence.

[@Bufoferrata]

@@defenstrator4660: The Dutch and British East India companies had their own private armies and navies as did a host of other corporations. In more recent times capitalists have employed mercenaries, private security contractors and death squads to get their way. What do you think the drug cartels are, government social welfare agencies? Big corporations OWN the government. They push for coups and wars and then privatize the spoils and socialize the costs( casualties.) Do you think the Mafia is part of the government? They are a BUSINESS.

[@lukegardner6917]

​@defenstrator4660 lol, and who owns the government my friend? Business. Two sides of the same coin that people argue are separate

[@alistairmackintosh9412]

That's why free marketers hate democracy.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

36:39 Running log of errors: Car invented in Germany, Plane in Dayton, USA; Cinema contested patent but Edison solved the critical chemistry problem that made it practical. Also WRONG: British Common Wealth still larger than France’s “empire”. The lingua franca is English.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

52:01 oh finally acknowledges Roman History on Smith.

[@BobQuigley]

The obsession with the past as a way to live today is illusory. Just does not apply in a world of 8 billion precious humans with 80 million net new precious humans joining us annually. Global wisdom must come out of today's civilization. Arguing with ghosts of a past we barely understand only further divides and confuses. We live in a world unimaginable only fifty years ago. We are watching in real time as our institutions decay. Living in a world where a handful of individuals have more money and power than combined wealth and power of every king queen emperor of the past. At a time when a single human or machine error could end civilization as we've known it. Yet we've never had more intelligent humans than today. Thanks for video!

[@stuartwray6175]

The past as a way to live; arguing with ghosts? - eh?

[@AndersBjornTH]

What a trollish statement at 25:05

[@gary100dm]

Creative destruction, I think it's Joseph Schumpeter.

[@clumsydad7158]

yes ... and this posting will now self-destruct in 10 seconds

[@TaumRob]

04:50 - LOL

[@JJ-fr2ki]

48:54 Go Matt but your question was ignored. Sole is a historian that confused priority with impact. There is no way even the well read K. Arrow read an ancient theologian.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

46:49 General equilibrium theory is a decomposed horse corpse.

[@danielsykes7558]

Saint Gobain is one of the biggest polluters in the world!

[@danielsykes7558]

37:37 😂 talk about success!

[@bytheirdeeds150]

Would have expected a mention of Marx; a close reader of The Wealth of Nationsand who generally admired Smith’s work.

[@ivanferraz8914]

Some people misunderstand the concept of Capitalism and think that is the same as Free Market. According to Fernand Braudel capitalist economy is above everyday material life and the operation of markets. Capitalism takes advantage of high profit opportunities generated by linking markets into a world economy.

[@SanvelloSerapiega]

39:00 france 1:00:00 neoliberal professorship on the enlightenment.

[@clumsydad7158]

they need to mention jean-baptiste colbert and adam smith by name in the description as well .. and yes time stamps are always nice

[@JJ-fr2ki]

58:46 Hume was very rich “opulent” from his histories I think before Smith published any book. And Smith’s apology was sort of standard for friendships between coevals. Accounts of Hume make him jolly and affable, but he disliked theists almost as much as Christians. A recent history of their friendship leans toward Smith & Franklin being atheists. This clears up some remarks of Franklin on lightening. He was proud to bring down superstition but it appears he thought atheism could lead to social disorder and wreck his American reputation. He was very aware of the unfortunate immoral atheist Maquis de Sade.

[@cbbcbb6803]

Why is the "free" market not free?

[@DipakBose-bq1vv]

Free Market is a propaganda of the Imperialists.

[@davidwilkie9551]

"There's all sorts of Magical Thinking going on..", situation natural and normal then. Propaganda type Advertising Industrial Complex.

[@clumsydad7158]

there is no country, nor has there been, where information was not controlled and distorted ... only questions of degree

[@rhyton66]

Tendentious polemic

[@michaelzimmer37]

I would have loved you so hard in high school! 15:08

[@thomasjamison2050]

Yes, it's practically a hip modern tradition today to make fun of religion, but there is actually a great deal to be said about the idea that Western hegemony is due in great part to the Protestant religion. The author tries to sidestep that by introducing Deism as though it sprouted out of nowhere, but that is most certainly not correct. If anyone should doubt, I think there is no clearer demonstration of the disaster of teaching Machiavelli's 'The Prince" as though it is modern wisdom when Machiavelli thought clearly thought it a junk job application to the low life Princes of the failed state of Italy in his day. Kudo's here to the author for pointing out that Machiavelli was at root a Republican, not that such a thing is entirely admirable, but it is certainly a step above the mafiaesque world of "the Prince." Putin's world and the virtual emasculation of the Russian Federation is no better example of the failures inherent in the concepts expressed in the Prince, and the evidence of that lies all over the battlefields of Ukraine. If the ethics of your friends and associates are not reliable in a business sense, you can easily find yourself going out a window. And not that Protestantism in all its forms never had any significant traction in Russia. One is reminded of course of Churchill's comment that WWI was won on the playing fields of Eton, but of course, today Boris Johnson shows us that is all part of the past, at least in the Tory Party.

[@nothinginteresting1662]

Some politician talks about free market capitalism....Everyone cheers and calls him hero...As if free markets ever existed. Americans have been told to hate socialisists because they think Soviets were socialists. They think socialism is state ownership. What if it is public ownership instead?

[@JJ-fr2ki]

46:49 Colbert is interesting but to log errors: McKinsey does not make most of its money “tracking dissidents”, that is slander or a bad joke-equally unforgivable from a scholar lacking the courage to read negative posts.

[@brianjennings7644]

the only real shame is, "they" only let me "like" this Video once. 👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍👍!

[@JJ-fr2ki]

1:00:16 Contradictions come through. Smith was not pro-corporate!! It is a Reagan myth. I’d rather read Gloria who?

[@JJ-fr2ki]

Too hard on Smith. Smith was not free market advocate; he feared monopolies as much as Marx in *Capital* (v1); he knew the post office had to be government run; he did have a government job; he conducted interviews to get data and learn local merchants exploited mercantilist policies; “free market morons” attribute FM’ “invention” to Smith but these are illiterates. And sadly Harvard has not caught up with the new and exciting post-Chicago behavioral/experimental/social network analyses that are making economics into a real science. 3 top econ journals also bogus impure and unapplied math still. I thought everyone knew Mercantilism was never a theory but a practice named by Smith. Smith made critical genuine contributions, and was well connected and familiar with Hume and his histories and even Ben Franklin. Sorry, I’m somewhat with you, but why does your genealogy clash so badly with Smith biography, writing and history of philosophy? I might read the book. Happy to be shown wrong. Also, Smith in *Moral Sentiments* makes anti-free market claims again about monopolies and over -aggregated capital badly invested and reducing velocity of money flow (“miserliness”). Attacking a straw man here. Also wrong on his influences. They were not just Roman stoics but also Gibbon whom was a friend and neighbor for 3-4 months in London ~1765 and obsessed with agricultural output. I have been fighting free market BS since 2005, but I think this historian goes back too far and got lost in the wrong archives. He should be looking at GOP and the Chicago School or early bad game theory in Vienna. Finally toughen up. Only thing I learned that I believe is Smith did not understand Bacon’s *New Atlantis* which is curious given he wrote at the GPT era of the steam engine.

[@squatch545]

Free Market: The History of a Bad Idea.

[@defenstrator4660]

Well it obviously had some merit. After all, the communist countries either collapsed or gave up on communism, so there definitely were worse ones.

[@squatch545]

@@defenstrator4660 There haven't ever been any communist countries. That would be an oxymoron, given the actual definition of communism.

[@defenstrator4660]

@@squatch545 You're not one of those "Real communism has never been tried." religious nuts are you? You do understand that communism was attempted and found to not to be actually achievable, right?

[@squatch545]

@@defenstrator4660 You do know what the word communism means, right? If not, look it up, or STFU.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

I swear this guy glosses over CRITICAL stuff. Before 1789 it was grossly inefficient taxation, fiefdoms, and wars that held back France. He got at best 1 out of 3 saying “that”s complicated”. It wasn’t. You could not ship a manufactured good through France without having to pay a tariff in every fiefdom until Napoleon.

[@paolosarpi8069]

Really? Even after 17th century reforms? Tell me more about it.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

@@paolosarpi8069 I think you have in mind Louis XIV reforms. They did nothing to reduce fiefdom taxation. They did modernize the military (Cardinal Richelieu), concentrate significant power to the King, and incredibly France did significant manufacturing (influenced by an influential proto-economist who saw it as more profitable than farming, La Croix, I think, would have to look it up). But to get even wheat to a port from central France meant paying tariffs every 50 miles and French was not even spoken nationwide another impediment to trade. I think this is in almost every history. *This Splendid Century* covers Louis XIV social history of elites well and their onerous local taxations to cover costly court life.

[@JJ-fr2ki]

@@paolosarpi8069 I’m an anti-Chicago School fighter since 2005, when I started and aborted an economics text, because Stieglitz and others were doing fine jobs, and my double PhD program was in comp neuro and philosophy. But I keep up with the exciting econ revolution underway and have a paper almost done on inflation and climate change with an economist friend. I’m in tech now. I mention this because there are many Libertarians (Libtards) who (rightly) cite Napoleon’s elimination of hundreds of stupid local tariffs as the cause of rapid economic growth that funded his popularity and wars. So oddly, you will find this history in pre post-Chicago histories of economics. Despite their misinformed theoretical commitments, these accounts of Napolionic economic growth in France are probably right.

[@MrKansaitim]

Ergo: The economics "profession" is not a science and is worse than religion ...

[@evanmcarthur3067]

You nailed it 🎉

[@vincentconti-jb3hd]

Worse than religion???!!!yikes

[@lowersaxon]

What a nonsense.

[@robbliss9149]

Not worth listening to. I am sorry I ordered the book.

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

I'm frankly rather skeptical about whether the history work here is any good. Finding a whole bunch of physiocratic quotes in Adam Smith should not be remotely surprising or considered remarkable or proof positive of anything at all. Standard economic histories give a reading with the following progression of trends in economic thought: mercantalism -> physiocracy -> classical. And they place Adam Smith at the boundary between physiocratic and classical economics. He's called the *father* of classical economics, not the child. Most of this lecture consists of quote-mining a bunch of physiocratic quotes from Adam Smith, leaning on the audiences' hyper modern perspectives to point out how bizarre the quotes are to us now, and asking us to conclude that therefore Adam Smith can't be a father of classical economics. But there is nothing at all interesting about finding physiocratic quotes in Adam Smith. Of course you find them there, it was the dominant economic perspective of his time, as well as an obvious necessity due to the class interests of Adam Smith's patrons. If you're going to make or break a case for Adam Smith as a father of classical economics, you look at what was unique or peculiar or interesting or different in his thought, not the parts that you would expect based on his class status. Adam Smith is of course naturally favorable to the physiocratic school: "with all its imperfections, it is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy" (Wealth of Nations vol. 2). And the idea of unproductive labor, that Jacob mocks here, is one of the central contributions the physiocratic school made to the budding classical economic thought, along with many ideas introduced by Adam Smith in Wealth of Nations and pointed to in the standard economic textbooks (which admittedly are not history textbooks). Demanding that Adam Smith must talk about the loom in order to be considered a father of classical economics is crazy. Of course he doesn't talk about the loom, he's writing in aristocratic agricultural Scotland in the 18th century!! To debunk the idea of Adam Smith as a father of classical economics you have to address the quotes that are being put forward as evidence of this novel thought. You can't just present other quotes that don't fit into the classical perspective. In another lecture, Jacob points to the scholarship around Machiavelli has a Republican thinker: scholarship which proceeded precisely by looking at his thought and what was unique in it and ignoring all of the bits that merely fit in with Machiavelli's cultural and class context. You don't debunk Machiavelli as a Republican thinker by quote mining a bunch of quotes from him promoting brutal autocratic princely rule.

[@lowersaxon]

I dont think that Mr. Soll is a profound thinker of what he is talking about. Its all anecdotal ( A. Smith worked as a tax inspector etc. and had good media connections and D. Hume was an atheist and the far more original thinker, oh my, oh my) and to me as a professional Economist the short story presented here is not very convincing, to say the least. To speak of „free markets“ one has to be familiar with economics to a certain degree. “‘General equilibrium’ in an economy“ according to him makes no sense. So, so. And what is wrong with L. Walras exactly? Mr. Soll doesnt even know how KEYNES (John Maynard Keynes, 1883-1946) is pronounced ( no, not ‚Keenes‘). First, tell us what „free markets“ are and then try to make your points in a systematic way. Next time perhaps.

[@tonywilson4713]

You have given yourself away by describing yourself as a "professional Economist." I'm an engineer and my question for all economists is: _If economists are so damn smart about economics then how come their advice has lead to the greatest wealth transfer in human history resulting in such a level of social malcontent that a revolution is all but guaranteed?_

[@rok1475]

It’s is rather sad that a professor user “I’m like…” phrase like an American teenager

[@umbraemilitos]

Sad?

[@stuartwray6175]

'It's is' - It is is? 'user' - uses

[@fennecbesixdouze1794]

To be frank, he should stick to the history and not try to make these economic conclusions. Saying the intellectual genealogy is backwards or not correct is fine, and offering good scholarship to back it up. But his focus on "the countries that are experiencing wealth growth right now are following a Colbertist model" is not a good place for him to go. If he's trying to draw conclusions about good state economic policy, or debunk neoliberalism, you can't just say "look China is getting wealthy and they're an autocracy". Such an argument is non sequitur, you need to account for all of the obvious conflating variables, as well as the non-obvious conflating variables. Such as simple demographics. I'm the last person to poo poo a good solid debunking of neoliberalism, but this isn't it. The contribution here is scholarship around the history.

[@brian2e]

I can see why i never heard of this guy incredibly sloppy thinking.

[@paolosarpi8069]

What a tragedy you have never heard of him hahahahah. What do you know?

[@mammaliandischarger]

Adam Smith lived in his mom's basement.