David Frum

The two form a unity of understanding how the individual works in the world.

So he was someone who believed maybe in what would be recognized today as a libertarian approach to governance.

But the libertarian psychology of the autonomous individual, the master of his domain, the Ayn Rand superhero, that he had no time for.

Now, he's got one piece of good luck, which is thinkers are often remembered for things they didn't say.

Charles Darwin never said survival of the fittest.

But Adam Smith did mention the invisible hand.

What is the invisible hand?

What did he mean by it?

And why is it different from modern...

thinking about pure autonomous markets that don't need any assistance from anybody.

For those who are not familiar with the phrase, let's put this phrase, I'm not going to be able to quote it verbatim, but reconstruct the larger sentence in which the phrase invisible hand appears.

We are in a world right now where the United States government has moved away from many of Smith's ideas.

There are tariffs.

There are efforts to pick winners and losers.

Government is taking a share of particular companies and then favoring them.

People in government are receiving streams of payment from companies, some domestic, many foreign.

And there's a kind of

In his context, he was thinking, well, what if you have one cannon factory in all of England or one place where you make ship sales?

You might want to protect that company, but even then, you'll be sorry on the long run.

Let's finish here with one more thought, which is reading Gibbon, which was published 250 years ago last month, that's a pretty daunting challenge.