Word: worldlys
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...Does it make any more sense to call him John? I mean, if black people came from Africa, I should give my characters African names, you know?" But as a writer, as a novelist, names help to identify a character, and place a character in the world...
Inspiration is a charged word, like everything is beautiful. It sounds positive. So when you're having a character brutally murder another person, does that come from inspiration? Nooo. Some kind of convoluted notion of the world has come up, and you've recorded it. But to be inspired? 'Inspired' work really sounds awful: 'The day was beautiful. The person I'm with is beautiful. We were deeply in love. We got married. We stayed together. We never cheated...
...book is that self-interest and free, competitive markets can be powerful forces for prosperity and for good. But Smith also calls for regulation of interest rates and laws to protect workers from their employers. He argues that the corporation, the dominant form of economic organization in today's world, is an abomination...
...Smith was also onto something that many free-market fans who pledge allegiance to him miss. The world is a complicated place. Markets don't exist free of societies and governments and regulators and customs and moral sentiments; they are entwined. Also, while markets often deliver wondrous results, an outcome is not by definition good simply because the market delivers it. Some other standards have to be engaged...
Applying Smith's teachings to the modern world, then, is a much more complex and doubtful endeavor than it's usually made out to be. He certainly wouldn't have been opposed to every government intervention in the market. On financial reform, it's easy to imagine Smith supporting the creation of a Consumer Financial Protection Agency and crackdowns on giant financial institutions. He might have also favored the just-passed health care reform bill, at least the part that requires states to set up exchanges to ensure retail competition for health insurance...