Adam Smith’s most profound insight was on the relationship between the division of labour and the extent of the market. The old sage would even have been able to explain this summer’s sporting results.
Germany’s crushing defeat of Brazil at the World Cup was an extraordinary event. And so was the metamorphosis of the Tour de France into the Tour de Yorkshire. Both the rout of the Brazilians by the Germans and British success on two wheels seem to reinforce the thesis touted by authors such as Malcolm Gladwell, Geoff Colvin, Daniel Coyle, David Brooks and Matthew Syed – that hard work trumps talent. In Mr Gladwell’s world, 10,000 hours of practice will make you a superstar.
Yet it is not just modesty that leads me to suspect that even after 10,000 hours I would not be ready to perform at Wembley Stadium. Academic research confirms this common sense. David Hambrick and Elizabeth Meinz are co-authors of a study in which they conclude that Messrs Gladwell and Brooks “are simply wrong . . . individual differences in performance on many complex tasks arise from both acquired characteristics and basic abilities”. If you want a Nobel Prize, you had better be very smart.