Reddit reviews Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

Not gonna respond point by point (@ work), and I don't have the book in my hands, but the short response to this is that Smith and others were pre-capitalist figures. They simply weren't around to witness the birth of the mega corporation, the financialization of the economy, the rise of the 'shareholder revolution', etc. The kind of wealth and power that now exists was not comparable in 18th century England. It doesn't take much reading of their work to realize they would have detested these aspects of the modern economy. Do you really think classical figures like Smith, Locke, et al would be supportive of massive deregulation of derivatives and the shuffling around of collateralized debt obligations? Take a deep look at Paul Ryan's budgets and the GOP agenda and you'll see that these are the types of policies - the complete elimination of Dodd-Frank, for one - that arise from the modern conservative worldview, which has been extensively polluted by big money and corporate power over the past 40 years. None of this is to even mention the views that came out of the Enlightenment about science and reason. Smith would shudder at the anti-intellectual, anti-science worldview that now dominates the GOP, from Trump and Ryan on down.

I disagree with Chomsky about a lot, but he's actually very good on this topic, and is the one who inspired me to read Wealth of Nations and Moral Sentiments in the first place. You can find some of his thoughts here. Apologies if referencing this to you is "not how arguments work".

I don't understand your pedantry about pointing to Dark Money as a good resource. It takes 2 seconds to read a summary. She goes into scrupulous detail about how the ideas associated with classical liberalism like small government, liberty, etc have been twisted and distorted by big money interests to serve their own agenda. In short, clamoring about the hatred of "big" government is very convenient for people like the Koch brothers who don't want any watchful eyes on them as they pollute the environment and destroy the world.

Maybe we're speaking at cross-purposes to some degree, but my point is that Ryan can only be considered a classical liberal based on a very narrow and cartoonish version of that school of thought. To reduce it to "minimal government" and the "liberty of the individual" is to ignore the larger body of work that really constitutes classical liberalism. The term is now so devoid of all meaning (thanks to people like Rubin and others) that it's historic, pre-capitalist roots now mean nothing. If you actually know the history, it's sort of laughable to describe someone like Ryan like that in my view.

Some more great reads (again, sorry?) are American Amnesia, which dives into anti government ideology in more detail as well, and Saving Capitalism by Robert Reich, who writes about how the idea of a free market in today's economy is a myth.

edited for clarity