With “The Wealth of Nations” Adam Smith installed himself as the leading expositor of economic thought. Currents of Adam Smith run through the works published by David Ricardo and Karl Marx in the nineteenth century, and by John Maynard Keynes and Milton Friedman in the twentieth.
Conservative vs. Liberal-An exercise
Most of the debate among liberals and conservatives in the United States is over specific issues, but very little attention is given to the underlying ideals and principles behind these ideologies. We state our case to support or oppose this or that, and we argue with people who disagree, but we almost never bring the argument down to the underlying political attitudes behind our opinions. As such we often misunderstand or mischaracterize each others’ positions, and the result is deep political polarization and a virtual inability to find common ground with one another. I think that a discussion about the fundamental differences between liberalism and conservatism is well worth having.