Source: Students For Liberty
by Riccardo Rossi
“The tension that exists is between two classics: Adam Smith’s extent of the market, where specialization and exchange reinforce each other, because ‘the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market,’ and Alexis de Tocqueville’s art of association, where civic life survives because people learn to act together. Smith’s division of labor delivers prosperity through specialization; Tocqueville’s civic associations safeguard liberty through engagement. Yet they can pull in opposite directions: specialization isolates, and isolation weakens democracy. This is not abstract: it decides whether the West stays free or slides into a new despotism.” (01/12/26)