Modern political economics began the debate about the value of human endeavour following the first version of the Adam Smith book The wealth of Nations. I grew up in the Scottish education system and of course the theories expounded as the basis of explaining how the world of commerce and politics converged.
It has to be said however , that the world in the 18th century was fundamentally different from recent times.The powerful laws of political influence over the colonies , natural resources and trade routes dictated by a few nation states really made things easier to explain and control , to some degree
Since then,we have seen the emergence of money markets , professional speculators , and a whole industry who does nothing other than create wealth from taking risk. Risk in itself becoming a commodity just like gold or copper.
Vince Cable , given his political persuasion, had at the recent conference an opportunity to state what everyone wanted to say , and that is , that unchecked making money for the sake of making money , is in itself too disruptive and subverts the powers of governments to do anything about the unintended consequences.
Adam Smith predicted these consequences but the value of labour and commodities , at the time of writing his book , were determined by the workings of commerce , and the branch of capitalism regulated by the market forces of supply and demand
As the unintended consequences of the risk managed capitalism , are misery lost jobs and services and a deterioration in the of value of humankind surely it is time to take stock and re- write the new Wealth of Nations
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