Mr. Adam Smith, please tell the court why the rich and corporations are a threat to democracy.
Mr. Smith: “People of the same trade seldom meet together even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or some contrivance to raise prices.”
Mr. Smith” Most government is by the rich for the rich..civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, and for the defence of those who have property against those who have none.”
Mr. Smith: “To widen the market and to narrow the competition is always the interest of the dealers. To widen the market may frequently be agreeable enough to the interest of the public; but to narrow the competition must always be against it, and can serve only to enable the dealers, by raising their profits above what they naturally would be, to levy, for their own benefit, an absurd tax upon the rest of their fellow citizens.
“The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce which comes from this order, ought always to be listen3d to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious attention. It comes from an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it.”
Mr. Smith: “The disposition to admire, and almost worship, the rich and rthe powerful, and to despise, or at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”
Mr. Smith” “As soon as the land of any country has become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.”
Mr. Smith: “Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.”
Mr. Smith: “A monopoly granted either to an individual or to a trading company has the same effect as a secret in trade or manufacturers. The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their commodities much above the natural price..”
Mr. Smith: “Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination not to raise the wages of labor above their actual price.”
Mr. Smith: “Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold and sliver, but by labor, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.”
Mr. Smith: “To fell much for others and little for ourselves, that to restrain our selfish, and to indulge our beneficent affections, constitutes the perfection of human nature.”
With Justice For All 