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[...] not only did he agree with the whole Enlightenment tradition that, as he put it, “the goal of production is to produce free people,” (“free men,” he said, but that’s many years ago). That’s the goal of production, not to produce commodities. He was a major theorist of democracy. There were …

First of all, I’m usually fuming inside, so what you see on the outside isn’t necessarily what’s inside. But as far as questions, the only thing I ever get irritated about is elite intellectuals, the stuff they do I do find irritating. I shouldn’t. I should expect it. But I do find it irritating. B…

[...] Sometimes when I’ve having an extremely boring phone call, I try to calculate how many centuries I’d have to live in order to read the urgent books if I were to read twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week at some speed reading pace. It’s pretty depressing. So the answer to your question i…

[...] Sometimes when I’ve having an extremely boring phone call, I try to calculate how many centuries I’d have to live in order to read the urgent books if I were to read twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week at some speed reading pace. It’s pretty depressing. So the answer to your question i…

The other part of the story is the development of corporations, which is an interesting story in itself. Adam Smith didn’t say much about them, but he did criticize the early stages of them. Jefferson lived long enough to see the beginnings, and he was very strongly opposed to them. But the develop…