No free lunch for free markets

I’m at AdamSmithWorks this week with a piece commenting on a (well, on two) episode(s) of The Great Antidote podcast, with the economic historian Sandra Peart.

I was struck by an offhand remark in the podcast that since Adam Smith thought the division of labour was such a positive influence, he had no worries about it. But Smith offers a famously brief list of proper roles for the government, and among them are measures to counter the downsides of the finer and finer division of labour that Smith believed would follow from economic progress, and I bring to light evidence that he was actually quite worried about some effects of the division of labour!

I think it’s unlikely that Peart and I disagree. I just use the comment as a point from which to jump into questions about how Smith thought about the costs of the most important benefit in economics. I also refer to another episode of The Great Antidote with Jacob Levy, in which they explore how the division of labour can lead to spontaneous orders that are dangerous to liberalism.

I also have a little piece at The Online Library of Liberty’s Reading Room about the passionate defence of free trade offered by ‘Manchester Liberals’ like Richard Cobden.

I read things:

Jason Kuznicki has moved his blogletter, Pacification, to beehiiv. He was also at Liberal Currents last week talking about a foreign policy that takes liberal individualism seriously. Huzzah!

Pat Lynch wrote a nice remembrance of Paul Lewis, who passed suddenly in March. Paul was a kind guy and an interesting thinker. It was always a treat to work or chat with him. I will miss him.

I liked and endorse this op-ed by Benjamin Perrin about Poilievre’s promise to use the Notwithstanding Clause (spoiler: we’re against it).

This recent piece by Alan Elrod, Children Are The Future: Authoritarianism, Culture War, and Making Model Citizens is worth more time than I can give it here. There would be something to tying it in with this post by Andrew Jason Cohen on the “telos” of universities and rejecting Jon Haidt’s false dichotomy.

Featured image from Arno Senoner at Unsplash.