Making universal statements about people requires logical care!

While waiting for yet another delayed train yesterday (I've not had a train on time for weeks - what a kick in the teeth for Labour who were going to kick the cowboys out)... has this thought about Adam Smith:

So AS key theory is : "agents acting on self interest in a free market produce the optimum equilibrium between supply and demand" (I think there is considerable evidence that this is true).

But its only part of the story and that is the problem. Consider this. The theory can be written in logic for clarity:

Ax | x is an agent in a free market && x operates on self interest && supply and demand is optimum

In other words for every agent in a free market, working on self interest and there being optimum supply and demand is true. Right/Left can agree on this. (Note: in a non-free market like we have this is not true.)

If we assume that the "agents" we are talking about are also people things get interesting. People can make True/False evaluations and making True/False statements about yourself causes problems e.g. "This is false" (see Tarski)

So my new problem with Adam Smith is that when we make logical statements about people (x above) we are including elements that make True/False judgements (if humans can't who can? God?). So each x is ALSO a function which generates True/False.

So we can say: x("Ax | x is an agent in a free market && x operates on self interest && supply and demand is optimum") and now we are in trouble.

In plain English: on one hand Adam Smith makes a statement about people operating on self-interest, while on the other hand shows that people have the ability to understand universal laws that apply to everyone. If we ever do chose to operate on self-interest it is a choice made from the perspective of the universal: humans are neither limited to individual or universal: they can chose. Indeed the whole moral/political/social debate stems from the fact that humans can understand and make valid statements about the "whole", and if we are self-interested it is just a choice from that perspective.