Russ Roberts

His modern disciples, most of them are not anarchists.

They understand that not all problems solve themselves.

But the fact that any do is quite remarkable.

I mean, reading the theory of moral sentiments, if you push your way through it, forces you to think about how you live your life.

Economists, you know, we think about incentives all the time, but often we get lazy and we focus on monetary incentives because they're everywhere.

And Upton Sinclair said it beautifully.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it.

And that's the truth.

You are often pushed and pulled emotionally by who pays your salary and what they want from you.

When I read Adam Smith's book, The Theory of World Sentiments,

I realized that, you know, there's a lot of other things that push and pull people.

Now, come on, didn't you know that before?

Of course I did.

But reading Smith forced me to think of it and have it be at the front of my mind that we want to be loved.

And so when you read that and you think about it and you write a book about it, as I did, it wouldn't be surprising that I started to also begin to think more positively.

deeply more focused on questions of what is the life well lived.

I have trouble not thinking about it.