Happy New Year! On Monday, we start tweeting about #AdamSmith 's whole #WealthOfNations at the rate of about a chapter a day! Don’t miss it! #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Today, we’re looking at “The Introduction and Plan of the Work” because although it is New Year’s Day, we, the SmithTweeters, are still Very Serious Smith Scholars. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
TFW you start reading “The Introduction and Plan of the Work” and realize that elevator speeches were invented before elevators. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
How hard people work &how many are working is more important to national wealth than resources &climate. So much for Montesquieu et al saying climate determines levels of industriousness or laziness. (Int. 3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
We swear we’re going to come back to Smith and this “savage nations” phrase he keeps dropping. We just can’t do it on January 1st. (Int. 4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
The mystery he wants to solve is why in poorer nations people seem to be working all the time while in wealthier nations they have so much more leisure. How do nations move from one state to another? (Int 4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
That’s the crucial thing to remember about Wealth of Nations. We aren’t trying to solve the mystery of poverty. Poverty/subsistence is the natural state of humans. We’re trying to solve the mystery of wealth. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Don’t forget to join us on Monday for Book One, Chapter One of Smith’s Wealth of Nations! #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
https://t.co/6tabcicjTN

More from @AdamSmithWorks

The great thing about #AdamSmith is that when he's about to go off on a 65 page tangent, he warns you. Humans, we bring you the DIGRESSIONS ON SILVER! #OhLawdHeComin #WealthOfTweets

Oh King Edward III, it’s adorable that you think you can just decree that servants and laborers become permanently content with wages fixed at the rate they were at five years ago.
https://t.co/NtOmttquJ3 (I.xi.e.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


He’s already digressing, and he can’t take a minute to share the menu from that famously magnificent feast with us? (I.xi.e.4–5) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Super Important 18thC Vocab Geekery: When Smith says the price of the quarter of wheat wasn't “supposed to be < 4 oz silver” he doesn’t mean “shouldn't be.” He means “wasn't thought to be.” He’s not approving of fixed prices. (I.xi.e.7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

So. Many. Wheat. Prices. (But really, Smith is talking about how much wheat it takes to buy a quantity of silver, NOT how much silver it takes to buy a quantity of wheat.) (I.xi.e.1–14) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

More from Society

Imagine if Christians actually had to live according to their Bibles.


Imagine if Christians actually sacrificed themselves for the good of those they considered their enemies, with no thought of any recompense or reward, but only to honor the essential humanity of all people.

Imagine if Christians sold all their possessions and gave it to the poor.

Imagine if they relentlessly stood up for the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner.

Imagine if they worshipped a God whose response to political power was to reject it.

Or cancelled all debt owed them?

Imagine if the primary orientation of Christians was what others needed, not what they deserved.

Imagine Christians with no interest in protecting what they had.

Imagine Christians who made room for other beliefs, and honored the truths they found there.

Imagine Christians who saved their forgiveness and mercy for others, rather than saving it for themselves.

Whose empathy went first to the abused, not the abuser.

Who didn't see tax as theft; who didn't need to control distribution of public good to the deserving.

You May Also Like

https://t.co/6cRR2B3jBE
Viruses and other pathogens are often studied as stand-alone entities, despite that, in nature, they mostly live in multispecies associations called biofilms—both externally and within the host.

https://t.co/FBfXhUrH5d


Microorganisms in biofilms are enclosed by an extracellular matrix that confers protection and improves survival. Previous studies have shown that viruses can secondarily colonize preexisting biofilms, and viral biofilms have also been described.


...we raise the perspective that CoVs can persistently infect bats due to their association with biofilm structures. This phenomenon potentially provides an optimal environment for nonpathogenic & well-adapted viruses to interact with the host, as well as for viral recombination.


Biofilms can also enhance virion viability in extracellular environments, such as on fomites and in aquatic sediments, allowing viral persistence and dissemination.