Smith's two remedies for social dysfunction: teach people to think, and give them reasons to be in good humor. 250 years old and still a better policy framework than most of what gets proposed today.
"Dramatic representations, besides, frequently exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were, upon that account, more than all other diversions, the objects of their* peculiar abhorrence."
* the fantaical promoters of popular superstition and enthusiasm
It is sentiments and ideas like this one that most invokers of Adam Smith miss wilfully, lazily, or ignorantly
Smith's two remedies for social dysfunction: teach people to think, and give them reasons to be in good humor. 250 years old and still a better policy framework than most of what gets proposed today.
"Dramatic representations, besides, frequently exposing their artifices to public ridicule, and sometimes even to public execration, were, upon that account, more than all other diversions, the objects of their* peculiar abhorrence."
* the fantaical promoters of popular superstition and enthusiasm
It is sentiments and ideas like this one that most invokers of Adam Smith miss wilfully, lazily, or ignorantly
#maketheaterlive