Thread by @ryangrim

I see your Lenin and raise you Adam Smith: “What all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.”

(He’s saying feudalism forced lords to share generously with serfs and others because otherwise it would all go to waste. Once wealth could be transformed into capital, stored and traded with other capitalists, there was no need to share it, since it wasn’t food that went bad)

This is the chapter “Towns Improved the Country” in Wealth of Nations

https://twitter.com/teddykellogg/status/1361856764187140097

There isn’t much daylight between Adam Smith and Bernie Sanders. Make of that what you will.