Smith also gives us a more compelling portrait of the psychology of motivation and achievement. For homo economicus the attraction of power, fame or wealth is simple greed for more. Smith is a better psychologist. “[T]o what purpose is all the toil and bustle of this world?” Smith asks about the human drive towards avarice and ambition? Smith concludes “It is the vanity, not the ease, or the pleasure, which interests us.
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Club Troppo » Adam Smith 2.0: Emergent Public Goods, Intellectual Property and the Rhetoric of Remix I’ve been thinking the same thing recently. All my daydreams of fame through creation always centre on me as the creator, and the acknowledgment of such by others. I want to separate my need to be loved from my need to create by accepting people will love me simply for who I am—as I do with friends—not for what I create. Then, I suspect, I shall gain solace and unfetter my ability to create. That is to say, I don’t agree that pleasure is excluded from all our toil, but that vanity vexes it and us greatly. |
