Adam Smith on how to make money

Did you know Adam Smith outlines why people are poor and others are rich? If you apply his thinking to a modern free information global economy, you can free yourself from poverty and make money. With this insight from a great economist from the past you can add value to society as well as have a better economic life.

This is a pretty long post so I recommend you print the post and read it as well as the posts referenced here, in the bath or while you are shopping. This can a first step to making money from the wisdom of the classic economist Adam Smith. First bookmark this website or subscribe to my political economy website.

I have applied these ideas to my own life and now I do not have to work as I make money in other ways.

The rich are lucky and the poor are unlucky – or can we all make money?

I once read that poverty is a mental disease. I don’t know if I would go that far.

However your attitude is a major determinate criteria for how much you can potentially earn.
There are many reasons why people make money.
I would say that luck and circumstance in which they were born is the primary reason that people are richer or poor to the age of about thirty. After that you need to start taking some responsibility for your own life.

Take a look around you, if you were born in Connecticut as opposed to Africa, you would have a better chance of earning a higher income in your preppy, country club surroundings, than in a poverty-stricken zone with no infrastructure or where educational facilities are less in Africa. The real trick is to understand this but not to let it limit you in life. By about the age of thirty you can start being aware of this and take charge of your life.

What Adam Smith recommends about how to make money

Once you become aware of the fact that earning money is something that everybody has the potential to do, then you can free yourself to some extent from your circumstances. Your belief and not environment limits you. It is toxic to believe otherwise.

Adam Smith believed we all have about the same innate ability. You must believe this. You can not believe your place or birth or your brain or anything else limits you. You must trust the thinking of Adam Smith in this regard. Read his words and arguement yourself.

It is only the difference in the upbringing, education and belief system that limits our ability to make income. Adam Smith wrote about this in while writing about division of labor,but the message is very clear. He was an enlightenment philosopher. I believe in the ideal of the enlightenment. Be enlightened. I recommend you take this ideal to heart if you want to better give a comfortable life for your family. Adam Smith believe you can make money as well as anyone else given the right education. With the Internet and mass literacy there is not reason you can not self educate yourself.

My economics professor at Trinity was working in a steel mill until about thirty, he decided, why should I make just a wage when I can do something I really want to do with my life and make more. He started to study economics.

The worst thinking there is when it comes to money

The belief that you do not have talent or are not smart or you are different than others. – We are all add up to 100%. Even if you think you have below average intelligence, talent, looks or whatever lies your mental programming is tell you, you can make money, more than you can imagine. Even if you can imagine a lot.
The belief that the government will help or almost as bad your company. -No one will knock on your door and give you ten thousand dollars a month, every month. Forget politics and start thinking economics.

Lets say you believe you have a low creativity. Why not look into this free method for increasing your intelligence called ‘image streaming’? You are not good-looking? I have never seen a person that did not have a beauty, join the gym and get a nice hair cut and some style. Education is limiting you, buy some books and education yourself. Be radical and take charge of your life.

Examples of things I did to set me free and allowed me to make money

I will give you specific examples of things I did. Maybe this will sink in our brain more than economic theory. Things that I did that allowed me to quit my job, and why I recommend you quit your job, eventually, if you are serious about making money.

I spent many years buying books and reading on my learning from square one. Books are better than the Internet and school for education. I learned programming on my own as well as philosophy, including Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations. Read the classics like Ludwig von Misses and Friedrich Hayek on economics, Milton Friedman etc. Do not read liberal economics which will tell you its the government, read free market classics. Do not read about selfishness, read about spirituality based on work and sacrifice and love, like Mother Theresa. The read specific knowledge books that will help you be the person you want to be. Read classics that are postive and uplifting not cynical.
I not only moved my city, I moved to a new country where I did not speak the language, I learned a language even though I am horrible with languages. Do not let where you live limit you. Your life is an empty canvas.
I am actively indifferent to whether I have money or not, it is more about doing what you really love to do in your life and see myself as a humble imperfect servant of God. If you need help ask for it from above and see what happens. However, whatever is God’s will accept it.
I believe in the hard way.

Attitude from Adam Smith or American get rich books?

Attitude determines altitude is a very American idea, it is a very popular idea gained self-help books. The reason I prefer Adam Smith to these self empowerment books as he was not writing to inpsire emoution, but as an observation and seeker of the truth. He was not trying to sell you. He also had one important message that people leave out in modern books or at least devalue.

The idea that income is generated because you create something of value. To create something of value and of interest to other people this takes patience and hard work. I believe in the hard way in life, mostly. I don’t believe in get rich quick. I believe that everybody can give and add to society.

Understand money is a store of value or a store of productive efforts, not something you get just because.

Books I recommend for changing your attitude about economics and wealth

Buy books and take inspiration from classic or books written by economists and great thinkers of the past. Ignore most modern writers like Antony Robbins or the Four hour work week guy. Why? The latter tends to evoke raw emotion, while the former will get your slowly thinking about life and the world. It is better to read three pages of someone like Adam Smith than a whole modern book. So read only a few pages, this is OK.

Start with Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations, then maybe the book Small is beautiful by E. F. Schumacher (This book outlines thinking about small-scale economics. Not exactly a capitalist book but some ideas are good for those who believe it take working for a company to get rich), or Free to Choose by Milton Freidman, the Road to serfdom by Hayek. One modern book I would recommend is by Erik Wesner Success made simple on why the Amish succeed in business. You can take inspiration from the Amish in America. The Amish use very little technology however are America’s most successful business community. A spiritual idea I recommend is the idea of active indifference in the Spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius or anything by Mother Theresa.

How to create wealth

Therefore, the question is not how to make money, rather what can you personally create that would be of value to other people? If you don’t know the answer to this here is how you can discover it. Go back to what you like to do when you were a child. What interested you before your parents and teachers got involved in your brain. Society basically programmed you work for corporate America. You have to de-program and learn think about adding value and create. You can create value to other people even if you have no technology were capital at your disposal.

My basic idea is you don’t need anything more than you are already given by God.

Examples of making money with your own talent you have already from childhood

America is a classic example of taking your childhood passions and turning into you work. The 10 richest people in America, only two finished their university. This does not mean you don’t have to work and you can make money fast, it just means you have to use your own creativity and intelligence and not rely on other people to show you the way. The next step is not a scratch your head thinking how can I add value it simply doing what you love to do naturally.

Me, I love languages, so I write language software. My friend loves history, so he spent three years studying the Amish community and wrote a book. I know somebody else who loves to make handmade quilts. Another person loves computer games, and wrote a very simple game, and from this makes a lot of money. All these things takes years, none of these people went to school for what they did, rather they just did what can natural.

This is post is an updated version of Adam Smith’s theory of labor and division of labor. His ideals came from the enlightenment and you can take a clue from is insights and apply it to your own life. If you do not read this part of Adam Smith’s wealth of nations you are swindling yourself out of your own ability to earn more income for your life. Do not cheat yourself out of your own life, and read this part of the Wealth of Nations.