George Mason University economics professor Daniel Klein asked me to post this.
First, a little background. Dan noted a passage by Adam Smarick in our sister book Law and Freedom. Smarick, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, wrote, “Who Will Lead Us?” Law and FreedomJune 3, 2024.
Here is the episode:
[O]ur Framers have always noted the importance of virtue in the maintenance of a republic. George Washington wrote in his farewell address, “Virtue or morality are the necessary sources of popular government.” John Adams wrote, “The only foundation of a free Constitution is pure virtue” and “public virtue is the sole foundation of republics.” Benjamin Rush argued, “Without virtue there can be no freedom.” Benjamin Franklin wrote, “Only good men can be free.” James Madison wrote, “To think that any form of government will secure liberty or happiness without any virtue to the people, is a common sense.” And Samuel Adams argued, “He is therefore the true friend of his country’s liberty who endeavors most to promote its virtue.”
Dan then commented, “Can we induct Adam Smith as an honorary inventor?” Dan pointed out that in Theory of Moral Sentiments wrote:
What institution of government can tend so much to promote the happiness of mankind as to the general increase of wisdom and virtue? All governments are only an imperfect remedy for this lack. Therefore, whatever virtue may belong to the civil government by virtue of its functions, must in the highest degree belong to them. On the contrary, what public policy can be as ruinous and destructive as the vices of the people? The deadly effects of bad government come from nothing, but that it is not sufficiently aware of the evils that the wickedness of men gives occasion for.
I agree with all of that. I also want to point out, however, that markets often provide a strong incentive for people to be humane. I wrote a whole chapter about this in my 2001 book, The Joy of Freedom: An Economist’s Odyssey.
Source link