[lbo-talk] Adam Smith on Too Big to Fail

Eubulides paraconsistent at comcast.net
Tue Dec 1 21:06:23 PST 2009


michael perelman wrote:


> "To restrain private people, it may be said, from receiving in payment
> the promissory notes of a banker for any sum, whether great or small,
> when they themselves are willing to receive them; or, to restrain a
> banker from issuing such notes, when all his neighbours are willing to
> accept of them, is a manifest violation of that natural liberty, which
> it is the proper business of law not to infringe, but to support. Such
> regulations may, no doubt, be considered as in some respects a violation
> of natural liberty. But those exertions of the natural liberty of a few
> individuals, which might endanger the security of the whole society,
> are, and ought to be, restrained by the laws of all governments; of the
> most free, as well as of the most despotical. The obligation of building
> party walls, in order to prevent the communication of fire, is a
> violation of natural liberty, exactly of the same kind with the
> regulations of the banking trade which are here proposed."

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What is natural liberty?

What are private people?



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