Session 1                                                                                                                                       
Enlightenment Challenge

• The 18th century Enlightenment used the truth seeking of the natural sciences to find the way to peace and plenty.
• The means was economic freedom that could eliminate material scarcity in the world and unite people in economic common purpose.
• Economic freedom required that the freeing of the mind, traced in the life of Voltaire; the freeing of the body of primitive needs described by Adam Smith; and the freeing of the spirit contained in the manifesto of John Stuart Mill that coupled material and spiritual benefits.
• This superior economic system according to Marx required priority over political solutions that it has never had and that is the reason that it has functioned at a fraction of potential leading to the present economic disaster.
• The economic freedom that could eliminate material scarcity has been severely limited by governments supporting finance capitalism, the economic freedom that could unite people in economic common purpose has been limited by governments engaging in war.
• Students need to understand the ownership opportunities and culture that can lead to peace and plenty but they need also to know how to shift government support from finance capitalism to democratic capitalism
• This is the Enlightenment challenge to be met by students who know that the mal-distribution of wealth is destroying the lives of millions around the world-unnecessarily! They are determined to fix the problem, this course can help.


Introductory course- Adam Smith Free the Body
          This course examines how human progress depends on evolutionary changes in the mode of production from slavery to serfdom to the wage slaves of the industrial revolution to the participating associates of the Information Age. It reviews how the freeing of the mind during the 18th century produced the technology of the Industrial Revolution with productivity improvement described by Adam Smith in 1778 sufficient to free the body of primitive needs, the same year that American Founders presented the Declaration of Independence with a government based on the consent of the governed. 1848 was also an important year as both John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx saw the opportunity for worker ownership to increase wealth, distribute it broadly, and free the spirit by giving the worker new dignity, purpose, and rewards. Marx knew that movement to this superior mode of production would improve lives whereas a priority for political solutions would damage them
          This course proposes that the minimum conditions for the success of economic freedom have been violated from the beginning with easy credit for speculation resulting in the world’s economic system functioning at a fraction of potential building up to the present disaster.
          This course proposes that economic freedom in America has not been properly supported by government because both the diffusion of wealth and political power have been abrogated by finance capitalism. The course argues that the educators have failed to equip citizens with the knowledge necessary to shift government support from finance capitalism to democratic capitalism. Correcting this failure is the ultimate purpose of this course.
          Adam Smith was for:

          Adam Smith was against:
 

          Students must understand the meaning of “free markets” and Adam Smith’s conditions for their success. They will learn that he was a friend of the worker, not an apologist for greed, and that he warned that speculators would divert capital and corporations would ignore the public trust.
          Adam Smith (1723-1790) was born in Kirkaldy, Scotland. He studied at Oxford and then lectured in Edinburgh until he was appointed professor of Moral Philosophy at the University of Glasgow. Smith spent the first part of his life studying and writing about the human instinct for trust and cooperation, reflected in his book The Theory of Moral Sentiments:
 

         
          Smith then spent the second part of his life studying and writing about how economic freedom could improve all lives if money were a simple medium of exchange, and speculators (“prodigals and projectors,” as Smith called them) had limits on borrowed money.
          On a tour of the Continent in the 1760s, Smith met with the leaders of the French Enlightenment, including the laissez-faire physiocrats, Turgot, who had written on wealth creation and distribution; and Voltaire, who had brought back from his banishment to England the contributions of Bacon, Newton, and Locke.
          Smith returned to Scotland to spend ten years writing The Wealth of Nations, in which he theorized about an economic system that could provide adequate food, shelter, clothing, education, and good health care for all.
          Smith described an economic perpetual-motion machine in which motivated workers would be coupled with the technology of the Industrial Revolution to reduce costs; competition would drive prices down to a level affordable by new consumers; increased demand would generate more jobs; wages of additional workers would add to demand for products; and the rising volume would produce another iteration of cost reduction through economies of scale. Thus the wealth-spreading cycle would continue:

       
          Smith’s dynamic depended on wages high enough to motivate workers and sufficient for purchases beyond mere subsistence.
 

        
          Smith knew that the privileged would write rules for personal gain at the expense of the public good:
 

          Smith pointed out that the masters by law could combine to suppress wages but the workers could not combine to raise them. Smith concluded:
 

          Smith was honored for his book, but his theory of free markets with its conditions was not assimilated by governments and corporations, neither was it offered by the universities for student examination. Such examination could have stimulated democratic action and changed the public policy to support democratic capitalism. Instead, finance capitalism continued to dominate.
          The optimism of the Enlightenment for social progress was conditioned on high- quality education. Smith, however, targeted the universities with strong criticism:
 

          The challenge of the Enlightenment was to apply the scientific truth-seeking protocols effective in the natural sciences to find the best social organization. The universities should be the place where ideas about human progress are debated, tested, refined, vetted, and codified like the natural sciences, but they were not then, and are not now. Smith’s criticism of the universities at the end of the 18th century echoed Bacon’s criticism at the beginning of the 17th and anticipated the present critique.
          Because of American citizens’ lack of education about Smith’s conditions, the government has allowed speculation with borrowed money to concentrate wealth, cause asset inflation, trigger recessions, and prevent democratized capitalism from uniting the world in economic common purpose.
          The capacity of the Industrial Revolution to eliminate material scarcity was the first critical component in human progress. The mission of providing each individual with the opportunity to reach for full potential is possible only if enough food, clothing, shelter, and money for education and good health are available. Smith’s discovery that humans did not have to battle over scarce resources as there was enough for everybody was preceded by the freeing of the mind examined in the next session. It was this freeing of the mind that provided the technology of the Industrial Revolution to free the body and eventually the technology of the Information Age. to free the spirit when the workers moved from the demeaning culture of division of labor to the celebration of the individual’s participation in the Information Age.
          Marx proposed this priority for the economic system but the intellectual community particularly educators have persistently ignored his advice and a world of folly and violence, not economic common purpose has been the result.
          Why is freeing the body then placed ahead of freeing the mind? Because Karl Marx accurately identified that human progress had been limited because the intellectual community had persistently prioritized political solutions ahead of economic. They never understood that economic freedom will lead to political freedom but political freedom will not lead to economic freedom. Free elections