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As Adam Smith put it:

a creditable day-labourer would be ashamed to appear in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty which, it is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad conduct.

To be poor is shameful, maybe this also holds when it comes to representing an indebted nation. Sure sounded so when Persson talked about sneering twenty year olds and woved to pay down the swedish debt (and embrace the third way).

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by A swedish kind of death on Fri Feb 18th, 2011 at 04:00:59 AM EST
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For Smith this was an observation. I suspect that he would have been horrified at the thought that elites would try to manipulate downward the perceived standard, though it is certainly part of the tool kit of today's elites.

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Fri Feb 18th, 2011 at 10:11:13 AM EST
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