Adam Smith Was Wrong

I admit I know nothing at all about economic theory, so I'm not going to pretend I know why the Dow Jones is now lower than Kobe Bryant's assist-per-game average. Nor do I have any idea how exactly $780 billion dollars can be used to effectively bail out failed banks and mortgage firms. (And I gather I'm not alone.)

But I am very good at baseless speculation and philosophizing. (Fun!) I hear on the 24-hour news networks about how executives and CEOs haven't really been brought to justice. Instead, many of them are self-rewarded with "golden parachutes" consisting of exorbitant bonuses or pensions or whatever.

I do know that the purest form of capitalism is based upon everyone doing what's best for himself. Greed is good. But laissez-faire capitalism won't work in unideal conditions (like we humans like to create), just like communism only works in theory. All because humans are imperfect.

Which is why the best result, at least in our un-utopian civilization, comes when everyone does what's best for himself and for other people, in sort of an altruistic, we're-in-this-together attitude. I realize that not all big business are so greedy as to give themselves giant monetary pats-on-the-back each year; I'm not that cynical. But imagine if all big business promoted the well-being of everyone else, in addition to their own self-interests. Or at least by avoiding self-promotion at the expense of others.

OK, so I didn't come up with this all by myself. I was thinking about a particular scene from one of the top 10 movies ever, A Beautiful Mind. It explains these ideas in an interesting and easily grasped way:



I'm a dork.