However that may be, the main point about which there can be little doubt is that Smith's chief concern was not so much with what man might occasionally achieve when he was at his best but that he should have as little opportunity as possible to do harm when he was at his worst. It would scarcely be too much to claim that the main merit of the individualism which he and his contemporaries advocated is that it is a system under which bad men can do least harm. It is a social system which does not depend for its functioning on our finding good men for running it, or on all men becoming better than they now are, but which makes use of men in all their given variety and complexity, sometimes good and sometimes bad, sometimes intelligent and more often stupid. Their aim was a system under which it should be possible to grant freedom to all, instead of restricting it, as their French contemporaries wished, to "the good and the wise."
The chief concern of the great individualist writers was indeed to find a set of institutions by which man could be induced, by his own choice and from the motives which determined his ordinary conduct, to contribute as much as possible to the need of all others; and their discovery was that the system of private property did provide such inducements to a much greater extent than had yet been understood. They did not contend, however, that this system was incapable of further improvement and, still less, as another of the current distortions of their arguments will have it, that there existed a "natural harmony of interests" irrespective of the positive institutions. They were more than merely aware of the conflicts of individual interests and stressed the necessity of "well-constructed institutions" where the "rules and principles of contending interests and compromised advantages" would reconcile conflicting interests without giving any one group power to make their views and interests always prevail over those of all others.
[bold highlights mine]
The great Friedrich von Hayek, in Individualism and Economic Order, debunked the need for individual reformation—as peddled by mainstream media “I am start [of change]” as a way to progress but is no less than a disingenuous camouflaged way of promoting collectivism predicated on organized and mandated violence—but for people to live in freedom under the parameters of established institutions which protects and advances a system of property rights. [hat tip Professor Pete Boettke]
And a possible enabling factor for this would be the rhetorical, ideological and cultural acceptance by the public or the "Bourgeois Virtues" for such institutions to emerge as Deirdre McCloskey has theorized.
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