He must be right. He's on the money...

And whilst on the subject of peculiar men who helped turn fucking people over into a science…

Congratulations to Adam Smith for making it onto the back of our money




Like Nash 200 years later, Smith is famous for advocating the beneficial power of naked self-interest.

The idea being that if everyone fought each other to a standstill some kind of harmonious equilibrium would be achieved.

Of course, both Nash and Smith also admitted that the naked self-interest thing is bollocks but that didn’t fit in with the spirit of their respective times and was quietly ignored.

Sadly, my favourite Adam Smith quote didn’t make it onto the new £20 pound which is a shame as there is no reason why banknotes shouldn’t be educational as well as smelling nice…

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.

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