How Adam Smith Can Change Your Life: An Unexpected Guide to Human Nature and Happiness

We tried buying local once; it was called the Middle Ages.

economics is the study of how to get the most out of life.

By justice, Smith means the virtue of not injuring or harming others. By prudence, Smith means the virtue of taking care of oneself using both foresight—looking down the road to assess the consequences of our action—and self-control, the ability to give up something today in return for a greater gain in the future:

He’s saying that we want to be seen as having integrity, honesty, good principles.

Yes, you are profoundly self-interested. But for some reason, you do not always act in what appears to be your self-interest.

Behaving with propriety is the ability to conform to the expectations of those around us, and they in turn conform to our expectations.

The prudent man is genuine. He is modest about his skills and successes. A simpler way to capture Smith’s advice is “Say little, do much.”

Hayek thought that extending the norms of the family to society at large would put us on the road to tyranny.

Smith believes that our desire for approval from those around us is embedded within us, and that our moral sense comes from experiencing approval and disapproval from others. As we experience those responses, we come to imagine an impartial spectator judging us.