about Adam Smith's "The Wealth of Nations"

Properly titled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, this fundamental economic opus is the work of brilliant Scottish polymath, Adam Smith. Published in 1776 at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, The Wealth of Nations describes the classical liberal, capitalist economy as a largely self-maintaining economic model built on free enterprise and individual pursuits of self-interest.

Smith's work is canonical, but a surprise nevertheless. This encyclopedic monster often reads like an in-depth high-school economics text book. But the dry writing (or dry translation of the writing) masks lots of fascinating bites, like Smith's views on colonialism and slavery, for example. He kicks off by crediting the development of the division of labor as the greatest single factor in nations' increasing productivity.

That one man could organize his thoughts and lay them out like this is a marvel. Nothing short of incredible.

The Wealth of Nations is the cornerstone of modern conservative free-market philosophy. I read a two-volume set produced by a private foundation called Liberty Fund, which, according to their website, seeks "to encourage the study of the ideal of a society of free and responsible individuals. The Foundation (sic) develops, supervises, and finances its own educational activities to foster thought and encourage discourse on enduring issues pertaining to liberty."

about "The Birth of Biopolitics", lectures by Michel Foucault

The lectures transcribed in The Birth of Biopolitics are the sequel to those in Security, Territory, and Population, a book I read in March. Neither book title really describes the content of the lectures, and this is especially true of the sequel. But Foucault acknowledges this; the mishap is apparently owed to poor planning.

Now, the lectures' original subject, biopolitics, is the governance of phenomenon related to life and population--families, birth rates, disease, hygiene, etc.--and this is with an understanding that governance takes many forms, that population is a kind of construct, that multiple powers are in play, and so on (Foucault qualifies almost compulsively). However, Liberalism provides the frame of reference for understanding biopolitics, so we first need to understand Liberalism. Hence, The Birth of Biopolitics actually explores Liberalism's philosophy and development in terms of tensions which Foucault calls relations of power (Liberalism here being understood as the limiting of government for maximum (economic) effect given the natural phenomenon of the market).

Reading, I was interested but still found the content dry. The Birth of Biopolitics doesn't have the kind of insights I normally look for and value with Foucault. This is more of a history and articulation of a political philosophy than anything else. Mostly, I enjoyed some early sections tracing the movements from governance under a wise sovereign guided by truths to the invocation of a market place and population policed by the state to the limiting of modern government in response to the police state. But, in all, the most lively section for me was Foucault's explication of Adam Smith's famous "invisible hand" metaphor.

Notes:

• I re-read Security, Territory, and Population before starting this one and it was worth it.