Good Advice in Nova Scotia

IMPORTANT NOTICE

ADAM SMITH’S LOST LEGACY HAS BEEN MOVED BY “BLOGGER”, THE HOST SITE, TO A NEW ADDRESS:

www.adamsmithslostlegacy.blogspot.co.uk

TO FOLLOW ALL 2083 POSTS (AND COUNTNG) FROM HERE TO 2012 AND BEYOND, PLEASE USE THE NEW ADDRESS.

THANK YOU

Gavin Kennedy

The ChronicleHerald.ca Halifax Noa Scotia 2 May:

‘Allowing free market to work in Nova Scotia makes a lot of sense’ by Peter Moreira, a St. Margaret’s Bay writer who authored Hemingway on the China Front, which was just published by Potomac Books.”Scotland gave the world not only golf, curling and kilts but also the science of economics. The world’s first economist was Adam Smith, an 18th-century Scottish professor.

I’ve never read Smith’s 1776 treatise, The Wealth of Nations, because, well, it’s pretty long and has lots of big words. But I do know it says nations grow wealthy by encouraging competition and free trade. That way, their goods and services are sold to as large a market as possible, and their consumers pay the lowest price for products.

‘‘The price of monopoly is upon every occasion the highest which can be got," wrote the sage of the marketplace 230 years ago. "The natural price, or the price of free competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon every occasion, indeed, but for any considerable time together."

Once again, we’re facing the bleak prospect of gasoline regulation for no good economic reason. In fact, according to Adam Smith, the best way to lower the price of gas or anything else is to leave it to the marketplace.

Comment
Honest enough to admit he hasn't read Wealth of Nations - too long, big words? - but right about gas regulation, Peter Moreira is different from most people who have read Smith's book. Many of them get it all wrong.

Anyway, nice to see the good folks of Nove Scotia are reading good advice (and without any reference to invisible hands and laissez faire!

More please.