Is this improvement in the circumstances of the lower ranks of the people to be regarded as an advantage, or as an inconveniency, to the society? The answer seems at first abundantly plain. Servants, labourers, and workmen of different
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This is a part of Adam Smith's book that pundits and "true believers" of both the left and the right conveniently forget about classical British liberalism. This was never about unbridled capitalism, but about improving the condition foe the entire society.
“that they are not ashamed to sin, and yet are ashamed to repent; not ashamed of the action for which they ought justly to be esteemed fools, but are ashamed of the returning, which only can make them be esteemed wise men.”
― Robinson Crusoe
― Robinson Crusoe
“Patriotism is a word; and one that generally comes to mean either my country, right or wrong, which is infamous, or my country is always right, which is imbecile.”
― Master & Commander
― Master & Commander
“To no man does the earth mean so much as to the soldier. When he presses himself down upon her long and powerfully, when he buries his face and his limbs deep in her from the fear of death by shell-fire, then she is his only friend, his brother, his mother; he stifles his terror and his cries in her silence and her security; she shelters him and releases him for ten seconds to live, to run, ten seconds of life; receives him again and often for ever.”
― All Quiet on the Western Front
― All Quiet on the Western Front
“Hegel argued that the capitalist organization of work emerging in his time could be ethically justified only on two conditions, described succinctly by Honneth: “first, it must provide a minimum wage; second, it must give all work activities a shape that reveals them to be a contribution to the common good.”47”
― The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
― The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
“But to write off white working-class anger as nothing more than racism is intellectual comfort food, and it is dangerous.”
― The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
― The Tyranny of Merit: What's Become of the Common Good?
Felipe’s 2025 Year in Books
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