<story><title>Adam Smith and Inequality (2014)</title><url>https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/adam-smith-and-inequality/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BuyMyBitcoins</author><text>I’m not well versed in Smith’s writings and I’m not good at parsing older English. What are your key takeaways or epiphanies from what was quoted?</text></item><item><author>gunfighthacksaw</author><text>One of my favourite passages from Adam Smith, I believe it was from the Wealth of Nations, though I don’t remember the chapter. When I was underemployed I took the time to read it (skimming the obsolete chapters on colonial administration: the American revolution is referenced as an ongoing disturbance)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate…Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people…” [In contrast, when workers combine,] “…the masters..never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen.”</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>heavyset_go</author><text>The ownership class are able to organize and conspire with one another to pool and promote their own mutual interests, and no one notices or bats an eye. When workers try to organize in order to promote their mutual interests, the ownership class uses the power of the state to crush them. They enact laws that make such organization illegal and then enforce the laws harshly and without mercy.</text></comment>
<story><title>Adam Smith and Inequality (2014)</title><url>https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/adam-smith-and-inequality/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>BuyMyBitcoins</author><text>I’m not well versed in Smith’s writings and I’m not good at parsing older English. What are your key takeaways or epiphanies from what was quoted?</text></item><item><author>gunfighthacksaw</author><text>One of my favourite passages from Adam Smith, I believe it was from the Wealth of Nations, though I don’t remember the chapter. When I was underemployed I took the time to read it (skimming the obsolete chapters on colonial administration: the American revolution is referenced as an ongoing disturbance)&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt;“We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate…Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people…” [In contrast, when workers combine,] “…the masters..never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen.”</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>grapist420</author><text>Employers collude to lower the wages they pay to employees. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust_Litigation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;High-Tech_Employee_Antitrust...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>