Leah Vukmir don't know (Adam) Smith

Hilarity abounds in Leah Vukmir's latest desperate effort to make it look like the Assembly Republicans have a health care plan in her frictionless conduit of propaganda blog at the Journal Sentinel, but this passage in particular gave the Brawler a chuckle:

The Democrats and CAW should take a cue from liberal policy wonk, David Riemer. He is co-opting much of the consumer-driven and free-market language in an effort to make Healthy Wisconsin sound like a warm and fuzzy state provided PPO plan. Riemer even shamelessly invokes the "Father of Free-Market Economics" - Adam Smith. For the record, David, Adam Smith would be horrified by a compulsory tax on wages to fund a government-run health care system.

The Brawler applauds Leah's staff for knowing to hyphenate "Free-market" as, in this usage, it's a compound adjective.

But the Brawler isn't sure what Adam Smith Leah is talking about here. Because it can't be the same Adam Smith who supported a tax on luxury carriages, supported regulation, believed in universal public education and and saw a role for government to play in ameliorating the lives of the poor.

From a review of Emma Rothschild's "Economic Sentiments: Adam Smith, Condorcet and the Enlightenment" (Harvard University Press) by economist Alan Krueger, whom, it is safe to say, knows more about Adam Smith than all the Assembly Republicans put together:

Smith worried about the encroachment of government on economic activity, but his concerns were directed at least as much toward parish councils, church wardens, big corporations, guilds and religious institutions as to the national government; these institutions were part and parcel of 18th-century government.

Ms. Rothschild stresses that Smith was sometimes tolerant of government intervention, "especially when the object is to reduce poverty." Smith passionately argued, "When the regulation, therefore, is in support of the workman, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters." He saw a tacit conspiracy on the part of employers "always and everywhere" to keep wages as low as possible.

Smith was a Rawlsian before the philosopher John Rawls, proclaiming: "No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged."

At the turn of the 19th century, Adam Smith's arguments were invoked by Samuel Whitbread in favor of a minimum wage and by William Pitt against it. "There is something of Smith," Ms. Rothschild wryly observed, "on both sides of the parliamentary debate."

Or consider taxes. Dick Armey does not miss an opportunity to enlist Adam Smith in support of his flat tax. Smith did favor low taxes and argued that subjects "ought to contribute toward the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities." But he also argued, "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expence, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion."

Would Mr. Armey support a tax on luxury carriages? Smith did.

Smith also supported universal government-financed education because he believed the division of labor destined people to perform monotonous, mind-numbing tasks that eroded their intelligence, not because education led to economic gain. His economic policy had social and moral objectives, not just the maximization of national income. To Smith, enlightenment was for the masses.

For what it's worth, the Brawler also liked Rothschild's book.

Now, don't get the Brawler wrong. He's not saying Adam Smith would necessarily endorse Healthy Wisconsin. But to suggest that if Adam Smith were brought back to life today he would say the US has the best health care system on the planet is ... dubious.