De welvaartstaat, l'état prospérité, der Wohlstand-Staat, the Wealth of Nations, Богатство наций, 财富国家 (Adam Smith)

(Source: De Morgen - Marnix Verplancke)

In his book "The wealth of Nations", Adam Smith, a filo-and economist from the 18th Century, did warned us already for the grab-capitalism. Today this form of greediness isn't quite destroyed yet.
"The 'performance' of the natural freedom by some individuals who can bring the entire society in danger, has to be moderated by the laws of the government" says Adam Smith already. So the financial institutes such as bank companies has to be regulated.
Our friend had only one 'ultimate goal' for the whole humanity: to improve human's life. He could be seen as a liberal in his time, but if you look deeper in his issues, he would be rather seen as a philosophist nowadays. That is perfectly illustrated in his report "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", the fundamental idea's of our ethics.

Humans have empathy

Even when a person is selfish, he should always have a certain fascination for others. In other words: sympathy, a result of our imagination, a result of our emotion about the Good and Evil.
"If everybody could be free, isn't that wonderful?" A.S. the Liberal was doubting...
Examples: no more mercantilism, economical nationalism, syndicates, regulations, taxes, import and export fees, bribery's, kind turns,...
His alternative is supporting on three basic thoughts:
- A baker doesn't do his job for charity, he does it for self-interest (in an ethical way of course)
- Who want to be rich should hand out his activities (time is money)
- The free market is necessary to create equal chances for everybody
A fine example: you can't divide a pizza where one person has the most and the other has the package to eat... You can only be rich to create a pizzeria.

Rules are important, but not too much: the less, the better, even in politics
A certain P.J. O'Rourke, a fellow Smithian, is explaining Adam Smith in his book. If A.S. should live now, he would wish that:
- the trade-agreements,inheritance-and venture taxes are to be vanished
- the legal charges are to be progessive
- the banks are to be regulated
- the property tax is to be established
- the separition between Church and State is to be protected by a certain income for the servants of religion, so they wouldn't be involved by pollitical decisions...

In short: "If you would keep an eye on your loan, the speculative philosophists utopists, polliticians, economists and God will take care of their own..."