P.T. Barnum and Adam Smith

P.T. Barnum and Adam Smith

Conventional wisdom, it can be said without reservation, is almost always wrong and misleading. Now, before you take me to task about the above statement, make certain that you do not confuse Conventional Wisdom with Common Sense because Common Sense is the truthful knowledge obtained by the wisdom of experience and shared by people in general, e.g., stick your finger into a flame and you will get burned. Conversely, conventional wisdom is usually conjured up and promoted by experts in order to shape the way people think. For example, advertising scholar James B. Twitchell tells us that Listerine did not make mouthwash as much as it made halitosis, i.e., bad breath as a problem was not conventional wisdom until Listerine created conventional wisdom by advertising that halitosis (bad breath) was a social faux pas that could be overcome by using Listerine mouthwash. By creating the now conventional wisdom that breath that smells bad is a surefire way to ensure loneliness, the Listerine Company increased its yearly revenues from $115K to more than $8 million in just seven years. There are endless examples of conventional wisdom that has been proven false, like: The Earth is flat, Doctors told us that smoking was not really dangerous as he took your BP with a smoldering Camel dangling from the corner of his mouth, Stomach ulcers are caused by stress (caused mostly by a bacterial infection), margarine is healthier than butter, Lobotomies are the best way to treat mental illness, etc. A current conventional wisdom being promoted by a variety of experts in Government and elsewhere is that global climate warming is bad and is being caused by human activity. The point being, conventional wisdom can be created to promote a desired viewpoint, and is done so in order to prevent the truth of the matter from being disclosed by rational discourse and factual discovery. And this leads us to Phineas Taylor Barnum (P.T. Barnum) and Adam Smith (author of “The Wealth of Nations”). Conventional wisdom has it that P.T. Barnum was a flamboyant rascal who Flimflammed and cheated people out of their hard earned money. Nothing could be further from the actual truth. P.T. was a sought after business lecturer, author and entrepreneur who’s book, “The Art of Money Getting” is must reading for anyone wanting to be successful in business. The Editor of the New York Independent wrote, “Mr. Barnum’s whole career has been a very transparent one. He has never befooled the public to its injury, and, though his name has come to be looked upon as a synonym for humbuggery, there never was a public man who was less of one.” Conventional wisdom has it that Adam Smith’s seminal work, “The Wealth of Nations”, is a charming but old-fashioned work concerning economics but hopelessly out of touch with modern times and thinking. Well for once, convention wisdom has it correct. The Wealth of Nations work is out of touch with modern times where centralized Government control of the economy replaces free marketplace control of the economy and Governmental Socialistic control is the modern thinking replacing free and independent people making uncontrolled economic and social decisions. P.T. Barnum’s book, “The Art of Getting Money” and his life is the “how to” guide to implement Adam Smith’s ideas in The Wealth of Nations. Adam Smith was a Scottish Moral Philosopher and his influential work, The Wealth of Nations (published in 1776), has made him the father of modern economics. Much evidence exists that the Wealth of Nations was being read by, and was influencing, most of the framers of the Declaration of Independence and the US Constitution. Indeed, the miracle of economic and personal freedom that the United States has brought to the world can be traced directly to the principals outlined in The Wealth of Nations. All of this brings me to the salient idea I want to make, conventional wisdom aside. Even though “The Wealth of Nations” and the United States Constitution were conceived and written well over 200 years ago, they will never be out of date. They will never be out of date and require constant interpretation because The Wealth of Nations and the US Constitution both codify the desire for peace, freedom and personal prosperity and these things will never be out of date. And finally, both the Constitution and The Wealth of Nations were conceived and written to fit the requirements of human nature. Therein lies the most basic difference between a free marketplace and free enterprise enabled by democracy and the Neo-Socialism being resurrected today from the trash-heap of historically bad ideas. Democracy and free enterprise don’t seek to change the nature of man, only fit the best governing and economic system to his nature. Socialism, on the other hand, seeks to change the nature of man to fit the idealistic notions of well meaning people and in order to do so always requires force and coercion. I can think of no better example of the socialistic need for force and coercion than that of the over 2,000 pages of requirements contained within the Socialistic Universal Healthcare law now before the congress.