Blog 8

Adam Smith

Defending Smith's Views:

I believe that Smith is somewhat right when it comes to his work in "The Natural Progress of Opulence". When Smith explains that the town and the country need each other to coexist, I think that he is getting the main idea across. If you think about it, without the rural areas within the United States, where they raise livestock, and grow crops, we would have no produce, no dairy, and half of the things that we see on our shelves. All of the food we would see in the grocery stores would be processed and fake. Also, without machinery for farmers to use on their farmland, they would not be able to easily maintain a well-off living area for their animals, and would have trouble taking care of the food supply. It would be difficult for the farmers to individually pluck all of the corn from a field as quickly as a tractor or plow could. He satisfies my curiosity a lot with how the nations grow rich because it is something that I don't really think about. Even though the urban areas of our land might be more financially well-off than other areas, I think that both the rural, suburban, and urban areas of our nation can all qualify as "rich," in how well they are doing in that certain lifestyle, or way of life. 

Adam Smith, is best known for his idea that country and town
cannot exist without the other. He is also widely known for the idea
 that agriculture, manufacturing, and foreign relations are the greater part
 of every growing society. 

Wealth Today:

In older generations, wealth was seen as how much land an individual has, whereas today, no one even considers that when talking about wealth. You are paying more for a tiny apartment in the city of New York than you are for an open ranch in the state of Montana. So, based on the area of land in which an individual has, one can infer that wealth and land have no connection in today's society. However, that doesn't mean that we don't see wealth in other things. When I consider someone wealthy, I believe that they have a huge house, wear top brand clothes and picture them constantly getting the newest things. Growing up, I  lived in a neighborhood where every kid at my high school had a brand new car, didn't have to worry about a job and they all stuck to the newest fashion trend. When I think of wealth, I think of an individual's personality. If you come off as someone who is snobby, or pretentious, odds are that you have a lot of money. People who are considered wealthy also, stereo typically, boast about it. They try to show it off as much as possible to their friends and family. This can be seen through a few celebrities today, too. They've gotten so caught up in the fame that they become such divas. Channing Tatum, is an excellent example. When my best friend lived in Los Angeles, she got the opportunity to meet Channing Tatum. Not only was he a completely different person than he was on camera, but later that evening, her father ended up arresting him for driving under the influence. Of course, this incident didn't make it to the papers because he was out of jail within an hour. So, this shows that although land can be a great representation of your wealth, in today's society, it is best represented through an individual's character. 

Adam Smith emphasizes the importance of the Natural Progress
of Opulence within this book, entitled, "The Wealth of Nations".

To Agree or Disagree:

In order to continue the legacy of what Adam Smith was trying to get across in his eighth paragraph of his essay, The Natural Progress of Opulence," I believe that our society needs to continue to follow in Smith's path, but in a different order. Today, we rely heavily on agriculture and manufacturers, but we have little to no interest in foreign relations. The reason behind this is because people in America are losing their jobs to people across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. The people across these oceans are willing to take jobs for less pay, which means, that the owners of these companies don't have to worry about losing any more money than they already are. These companies then benefit from the foreign relationship that they have with others across the sea. So, I believe that Adam Smith does have a good chain of events when it comes to focusing on agriculture, then manufacturing, and then foreign relations, but, if we keep foreign relations at a priority, I'm afraid that we will also lose our agricultural and manufacturing jobs and opportunities in the United States for these reasons, as well. We already are starting to see a losing trend in labor jobs in the United States of America, so what's next?