Mastodawn

On this day, 250 years ago, Scottish economist and philosopher Adam Smith laid the first groundwork for classical economics with his magnum opus, The Wealth of Nations, which challenged the prevailing European attitude favoring mercantilism. A full copy can be read on Wikisource (https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations).

#year1776 #AdamSmith #classicalEconomics #freeMarkets #liberalism #mercantilism #TheWealthOfNations

The Wealth of Nations - Wikisource, the free online library

Dave Freedman Feb 23

Trump "has wielded the powers of the federal bureaucracy to pressure executives, sometimes in ways that blur the lines between his policy objectives and his personal business interests."
#kleptocracy #capitalism #freemarkets
Trump’s Challenge to Free Market Capitalism https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/22/business/economy/trump-republicans-economy-capitalism.html?smid=nytcore-android-share

Trump’s Challenge to Free Market Capitalism

Stakes in private companies. Handshake deals with chief executives. The president’s economic policy has drifted far from principles that long defined the Republican Party. Is it capitalism at all?

The New York Times

Adrian Segar Feb 13

Our choice is not between free markets and state control, for most adults spend their working lives controlled by a third thing entirely: private government.

https://www.conferencesthatwork.com/index.php/soapbox/2019/05/private-government

#FreeMarkets #StateControl #PrivateGovernment #FacilitatingConnection

AKingsbury Feb 13

Do you object to what #ICE and the #DHS are doing? Do you wonder why both #democrat and #republican administrations have supported them for decades? Are you looking for an #alternative?

You might be a #libertarian.

#freeminds, #freemarkets, and #peace.

Andi Chorley Jan 28

[A] great embarrassing fact [that] haunts all attempts to represent the market as the highest form of human freedom: that historically, impersonal, commercial markets originate in theft.”

David Graeber

#DavidGraeber #Capitalism #Freemarkets

𝕯𝖔𝖔𝖒𝖘𝖈𝖗𝖔𝖑𝖑™Jan 5

🕰️ Fresh calendar, same old lie. They say markets are free. They never were. Law writes the rules, the state prints the money, and power fills the gaps. Strip the scaffolding and you do not get freedom. You get monopoly, muscle, and silence. 2026 is about staring that down.

What is labeled “overregulation” increasingly resembles regulatory absence: capture, opacity, non-payment, and selective enforcement.

#FreeMarkets https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/01/there-are-no-free-markets.html

There Are No Free Markets | naked capitalism

Neoliberal free market ideology was always a fantasy. But what comes next given the late stage capitalism breakdown?

naked capitalism

रञ्जित (Ranjit Mathew)Jan 3

😬😓:

“Adam Smith Is Misinterpreted And His Influence Overstated”, The Economist (https://www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2025/12/18/adam-smith-is-misinterpreted-and-his-influence-overstated or https://archive.is/hQpRa).

#Economics #Capitalism #FreeMarkets #AdamSmith #TheWealthOfNations #Legacy #Books #InvisibleHand

Strypey Dec 4

"In this book, Sidney Dekker sets out to identify the market mechanisms that explain how less government paradoxically leads to greater compliance burdens. This book gives shape and substance to a suspicion that has become widespread among workers in almost every industry: we have to follow more rules than ever-and still, things can go spectacularly wrong."

https://sidneydekker.com/compliance-capitalism

#HatTip to @dtauvdiodr for the reference.

#FreeTrade #FreeMarkets #neoliberalism #corporatism #SidneyDekker