Try telling most people that less is more

Try telling most people that less is more

By NEIL REYNOLDS

Friday, September 2, 2005, Page B2

OTTAWA -- Long fed on boundless hope, O race of man, how quick thou art to spurn all humbler fare.

-- Matthew Arnold

As societies grow richer, Adam Smith observed, people do for fun what they used to do for survival -- "they pursue for pleasure what they once followed from necessity." Hunting. Fishing. Grunt-work gardening. Roughing it. On the job, though, the famous 18th-century economist insisted, the fundamentals never change. People think that they are more talented than they are. They think that they are worth more than they are. These "overweening conceits," he said, were an ancient evil.

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