From Adam Smith to the Wealth of America

Front Cover
Transaction Publishers, Jan 1, 1985 - Business & Economics - 237 pages
This book demonstrates that because the United States is enmeshed in a complexity of regulations, government debt, bureaucracy, and taxes does not mean that these policies cannot be reversed. They have been before. Rabushka describes an earlier reversal of mercantilist claims by a growing group of influential politicians influenced by Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations. It is Rabushka's contention that Adam Smith's principles of sound money, taxes, minimal governmental regulation, and free trade have led to prosperity.

From inside the book

Contents

Prelude to Liberal Reform
3
The Reduction of Government Spending
24
Fifty Years of Tax Reform
38
The Flowering of Economic Freedom
72
Monetary Stability The Gold Standard at Work
82
From Factions to Parties The Transformation of British Politics
93
Economic Growth and Individual Prosperity
111
Vignettes of Growth Singapore Taiwan and South Korea
149
10 What Happened to the American Dream?
181
Recipe for Prosperity
211
Appendix
Index
Copyright

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Page 21 - Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as Little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.
Page 14 - Taxes on everything on earth, and the waters under the earth ; on everything that comes from abroad, or is grown at home. Taxes on the raw material ; taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man.
Page 95 - And herein indeed consists the true excellence of the English government, that all the parts of it form a mutual check upon each other. In the legislature, the people are a check upon the nobility, and the nobility a check upon the people, by the mutual privilege of rejecting what the other has resolved ; while the king is a check upon both, which preserves the executive power from encroachments.
Page 20 - By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.
Page 121 - What an extraordinary episode in the economic progress of man that age- was which came to an end in August 1914! . . . The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural...
Page 211 - Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or more properly to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services.
Page 14 - Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel ; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble ; and he is then gathered to his fathers, — to be taxed no more.
Page 14 - ... raw material — taxes on every fresh value that is added to it by the industry of man — taxes on the sauce which pampers man's appetite, and the drug that restores him to health — on the ermine which decorates the judge, and the rope which hangs the criminal — on the poor man's salt, and the rich man's spice— on the brass nails of the coffin, and ihe ribands of the bride — at bed or board, couchant or levant, we must pay.
Page 121 - The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, in such quantity as he might see fit, and reasonably expect their early delivery upon his doorstep; he could at the same moment and by the same means adventure his wealth in the natural resources and new enterprises of any quarter of the world, and share, without exertion or even trouble, in their prospective fruits and advantages...
Page 14 - ... for the privilege of putting him to death. His whole property is then immediately taxed from 2 to 10 per cent. Besides the probate, large fees are demanded for burying him in the chancel; his virtues are handed down to posterity on taxed marble; and he...

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