How Adam Smith predicted Gordon Brown
Fraser Nelson 6:29pm
So why was Wen Jiabao, the Chinese Prime Minister, carrying Adam Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments in his bag when he came to see Gordon Brown? My hunch is that his aides found it contained a perfect description of the man he was about to meet. I reprint Smith's almost Nostradamus-style description here. This is Brown in a nutshell:
The "man of system" is apt to be very wise in his own conceit; and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he cannot suffer the smallest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely and in all its parts, without any regard either to the great interests, or to the strong prejudices which may oppose it. He seems to imagine that he can arrange the different members of a great society with as much ease as the hand arranges the different pieces upon a chess-board. He does not consider that the pieces upon the chess-board have no other principle of motion besides that which the hand impresses upon them; but that, in the great chess-board of human society, every single piece has a principle of motion of its own, altogether different from that which the legislature might chuse to impress upon it.
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oldtimer
February 3rd, 2009 6:39pm Report this commentExactly!
Brilliant find.
Thomas Cussans
February 3rd, 2009 6:45pm Report this commentWhere did you find this?
Bullseye.
No wonder New Labour have so consistently disowned the past.
Mark Stockwell
February 3rd, 2009 7:02pm Report this commentMy respect for Adam Smith goes down. The man was clearly no good at chess.
Fergus Pickering
February 3rd, 2009 8:01pm Report this commentBut aren't people who are good at chess nuts? I am no good at chess
Craig
February 3rd, 2009 8:24pm Report this commentThat's a superb quote!
Jock
February 3rd, 2009 8:28pm Report this commentBlair and Campbell said it in fewer words - "Psychologically flawed."
Nick Kaplan
February 3rd, 2009 8:30pm Report this commentIf only modern day sociologists were as insightful as the founders of their subject such as Smith and Hume, one can only dream....
Trumpeter Lanfried
February 3rd, 2009 8:46pm Report this commentAs a matter of interest, did Adam Smith have any particular individual in mind when he wrote that?
drakes drum
February 3rd, 2009 9:25pm Report this commentHence. The New World Order he keeps ranting on about!
It identifies a totalnutcase!
TrevorsDen
February 3rd, 2009 9:57pm Report this commentIt just shows there is nothing new under the sun.
The Duke of Wellington I think said something similar, to the effect that French plans were like an elaborate bespoke harness on a coach which if one piece broke made the whole set up unusable. Whereas he was happy to tie together a loose amalgam of shoddy pieces which he could easily manage and repair.
Wellington could think on his feet.
skooch
February 3rd, 2009 10:05pm Report this commentTo paraphrase, and with regard to Blair:
The ‘man of expediency’ is also apt to be very wise in his conceit: and is often so enamoured with the supposed beauty of his own ideal plan of government, that he can suffer the largest deviation from any part of it. He goes on to establish it completely, globally ...
Tiberius
February 3rd, 2009 10:16pm Report this commentTrumpeter: I'd guess he'd seen a few examples of Fife's finest in his time (no offence, Fraser!)
Alex
February 3rd, 2009 10:35pm Report this commentShouldn't that be a clunking fist arranging chess pieces?
Fraser Nelson
February 4th, 2009 12:28am Report this commentTrumpeter, he didn't - but it's amazing just how prescient Smith, Hume, Bastiat etc were in predicting the kind of charlatans that we'd getting as a result of the statist doctrine then being incubated in France.
Tiberius, I'm a Highlander. Though my family now live in Fife.
In fact, the above reminds me of your namesake's greatest lines: "No, I'm from Iowa - I just work in outer space"
GeoffH
February 4th, 2009 7:06am Report this commentThe quote has wider application than GB.
It applies to all socialists in or aspiring to government.
Wilhelm
February 4th, 2009 8:15am Report this commentFraser sweetheart
Thats a very long winded comment to say Gordon Broon is psychologically flawed.
Rush-is-Right
February 4th, 2009 8:22am Report this commentMacauley (History of England Vol 1) puts it even better;
>i By his fondness for worthless minions... he kept discontent constantly live. His cowardice, his childishness, his pedantry, his ungainly person and manners, his provincial accent, made him an object of derision.... (he) was exhibited to the world stammering, slobering, shedding unmanly tears, trembling at a drawn sword and talking in the style alternately of a buffoon and of a pedagogue. >/i
Macauley was writing of King James I, but to me it seems equally apt as a description of the Prime Mentalist.
Johnathan Pearce
February 4th, 2009 8:26am Report this commentExcellent. I also recommend PJ O'Rourke's recent book on Adam Smith.
Puncheon
February 4th, 2009 9:07am Report this commentExcellent, but doesn't this criticism apply to almost all socialists/collectivists. In their hearts they believe that the rest of us are here just to play bit parts in their great social engineering experiments. It never occurs to them that we are individuals with lives of our own to lead.
Mike Kingscott
February 4th, 2009 9:11am Report this comment@Fergus Pickering: I can't stand chess nuts boasting in an open foyer...
On topic, great find - this Adam Smith bloke was quite astute, wasn't he? ;)
Roger Thornhill
February 4th, 2009 9:38am Report this commentGordon Brown: When Autism meets Sociopath.
Gruntson
February 4th, 2009 9:49am Report this commentExcellent - the great man of system undone by his own contraption. (Hoist by his own petard.)
All a bit Heath Robinson, I suppose. And with reference to Fergus Pickering above - chessnuts? wrong season for conkers old boy!
hadrian
February 4th, 2009 9:19pm Report this commentTrevor'sDen- I am convinced the secret of Wellington's greatness was his favourite injunction to all his men to 'empty their bladders at every available opportunity.'
Doubtless Broon's bunglings are so alarming it has me almost disgracing myself far too regularly.
Fraser- Nelson is not a notably Hielan name. Which part of that noble host in particular do you emanate from?
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