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"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because
its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience."
A monopoly granted
either to an individual or a trading incorporation has the same effect as
a secret in trade
or manufacturing.
The monopolists, by keeping the market constantly
understocked, by never fully supplying the effectual demand, sell their
commodities much above the natural price, and raise their emoluments, whether
they consist in wages or profit, greatly above their natural rate.
The price of monopoly is upon
every occasion the highest which can be got.
The natural price, or
the price of free
competition, on the contrary, is the lowest which can be taken, not upon
every occasion indeed, but for any considerable time altogether.
The
one is upon every occasion the highest which can be
squeezed out of the buyer, or which, it is supposed, they will consent to
give: The other is the lowest which the sellers can commonly afford to take,
and at the same time continue their business.
In a market free from monopolies and
self-serving public
policies, normal competition among the self-interests of disparate groups
of consumers and producers produces a stable
expanding economy.
Country gentlemen and farmers are,
to their great honor, of
all people, the least subject to the
wretched spirit of
monopoly.
The undertaker of a great manufactory is sometimes
alarmed if another manufacturer of the same category is established within
twenty miles of him.
The Dutch woollen manufacture at Abbeville
stipulated, that no work of the same category should be established within
thirty leagues of that city.
Farmers and country gentlemen, on the
contrary, are generally disposed rather to promote than to obstruct the
cultivation and improvement of their neighbors' farms and estates.
They
have no secrets, such as those of the greater part of manufacturers, but are
generally rather fond of communicating to their neighbors, and of extending as
far as possible any new practice which they have found to be
advantageous.
The great source of both the
misery and
disorders of human life,
seems to arise from over-rating the difference between one permanent situation
and another.
Some of those situation may,
no doubt, deserve to be
preferred to others: but none of them can deserve to be pursued with
the passionate ardour which
drives us to violate the
rules either of prudence or of justice; or
to corrupt the future tranquility
of our minds, either by shame from the
remembrance of our own folly, or by remorse
from the horror of our own injustice.
In modern war the great
expense of fire arms gives an evident advantage to the nation which can best
afford that expense; and consequently, to an
opulent and civilized,
over a poor and barbarous
nation.
In ancient times the
opulent and
civilized found it difficult to defend themselves against
the poor and barbarous nations.
In modern times the poor and
barbarous find it difficult to defend themselves against the
opulent and
civilized.
Such is the delicacy of man alone, that
no object is produced
to his liking.
He finds that in everything
there is need for improvement.
The whole industry of human life is
employed not in procuring the supply of our three humble necessities,
food,
clothes and
lodging, but in procuring the
conveniences of it according to the nicety and delicacy of our
tastes.
Finding nothing either in the animals or vegetables of the newly
discovered countries, which could justify a very advantageous representation of
them, Columbus turned his view towards their minerals; and in the richness of the
production of this third kingdom, he flattered himself, he had found a full
compensation for the insignificance of those of the other two.
The
little bits of gold with which the inhabitants ornamented their dress, and
which, he was informed, they frequently found in the rivulets and torrents that
fell from the mountains, were sufficient to satisfy him that those mountains
abounded with the richest gold mines.
St. Domingo, therefore, was
represented as a country abounding with gold, and, upon that account
an inexhaustible source of
real wealth to the crown and kingdom of Spain.
Adam Smith
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This website defines a
new perspective with which to engage reality to which its author adheres. The
author feels that the falsification of reality outside personal experience has
forged a populace unable to discern propaganda from reality and that this has
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agents who wish to foist a corrupt version of reality on the human race.
Religious intolerance occurs when any group refuses to tolerate religious
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web site marks the founding of a system of philosophy named The Truth of the
Way of the Lumière Infinie - a rational
gnostic mystery
religion based on reason which requires no leap of faith, accepts no
tithes, has no supreme leader, no church buildings and in which each and every
individual is encouraged to develop a personal relation with the Creator and
Sustainer through the pursuit of the knowledge of reality in the hope of curing
the spiritual corruption that has enveloped the human spirit. The tenets of The
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violence that is already occurring due to the international corporate cartels
desire to control the human race. The international corporate cartel already
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industrial military entertainment complex and is responsible for the collapse
of morals, the elevation of self-centered behavior and the destruction of
global ecosystems. Civilization is based on coöperation. Coöperation
does not occur at the point of a gun.
American social mores and values
have declined precipitously over the last century as the corrupt international
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deceive the populace in general through corporate media by pressing emotional
buttons which have been preprogrammed into the population through prior
corporate media psychological operations. The results have been the destruction
of the family and the destruction of social structures that do not adhere to
the corrupt international elites vision of
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has been directed toward solutions proposed by the corrupt international elite
that further consolidates their power and which further their purposes.
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