Adam Smith: Human Flourishing

The AEI posted an article on Adam Smith and his big ideas for human flourishing. The article explained how you can't have human flourishing without economic, political, and moral flourishing as well. They base the article off of Smiths book "The Wealth of Nations". Smith made up is own definition of flourishing. AEI describes his definition as, "a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks in society". With that in mind that definition will be used plenty throughout this economics blog. 

Economic Flourishing is probably what Smith was most edecated in. (Though he is knowledgeable in these other categories as well, obviously). I want you to picture for a second a very rich city. Full of classic tastes and a whole new luxury. What did you think of? Fancy cars? Awesome machines? Adam Smith would've saw laziness. And that was back in his day I could only imagine how he would feel now. "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, if part of the society are poor and miserable". Don't get me wrong Smith doesn't want to keep society as a low, of course he wants it to grow. However, don't think your self interest can define society. Only the majority can do that. Remember that? The majority? As discussed many times in the beginning of the semester the majority had to be broken up into separate interest groups or nothing good would get done. "The Market" (the majority) makes economic growth possible because it alleviates the poorest conditions and helps flourishing society. 

Political Flourishing was discussed slightly in the article. Smith didn't really have the everyday thinking that other political leaders did. Thus making him impeccable for his position. He was compared to Aristotle a lot due to the similar thinking. They believe that the best society will come from the best society that can be realized in practice. Think about it. That makes sense. 

Moral Flourishing was probably my favorite to read about. It discusses how love and affection effects economics. Think for a second of the best day of your life. Maybe your marriage? Maybe your children being born? Maybe completing your first marathon? Whatever it may be look at everyone in the background. What's going on? I bet you everyone's happy in your scene. Why? Because according to Smith no one can truely be happy if no one else around them is. The AEI made a very bold claim and before reading this I would've gotten so mad, but now that I have read and understand, here it is. "Our existence is based on the existence of society." 

So you may be wondering how all this ties into economics. Well think about it, if we have a strong political leader then politics will flourish, politics goes hand in hand with economics therefore economics will flourish, when economics flourish people become happy thus making everyone else happy. Economics is more than just money, it's understanding. And Smith knocked it out of the park.