Book: 20260903 to 20261010, "the Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith
20260903 - Preface Hence Adam Smith's free-trade and free-market trinity: freedom, prosperity and security. p xii This only suits democracy countries, which follow the same rules. 20260903 - An introduction by Tom Butler-Bowdon.....xiii How much a good or service costs generally depends on the amount of labour that has gone into its making. p xix What if this "amount of labour" turns into zero because AI and robots? Smith admitted that the modern factory system could easily lobotomize workers. p xxi That's the cost of high productivity. Bullshit Jobs This aversion to war runs throughout The Wealth of Nations, principally because Smith felt it was a shocking waste of a society's resources. p xxviii This is the weak point of this book. Robust is as important as productivity. We need to sacrifice some productivity to prevent building a fragile system. Globalization is important, but distributional production make the world stronger. Smith highlights the fac...