Hi this is Tutor Nick P and this is Noun Phrase 201.
The noun phrase today is unintended consequences.
Okay. Let's take a look at the note here. An unintended consequence means a
final result that was unplanned and unforeseen.
The suggestion is one did not see it coming. So
when somebody did this they never imagined that it could lead to this
result. Then we could say that is an unintended
consequence All right. Let's continue. The origin of
this term dates back to the 18th century. It was coined by Adam Smith in his
writings. Here is the quote that explains what he
meant. Now nowadays when we use unintended
consequences, most of them tend to be negative. Like we
did something and we never expected it to lead to this
negative thing. Ironically, the original one was that the
unintended consequences actually ended up being a good thing,
not a bad thing. So let's, let's look at what he's writing about. He's actually
writing about like economics. And he's writing about you
know, the way , the way that economics is set up
or capitalist society is set up people will tend to try to
search out the best price and the best quality and
because they do this usually it ends up
in a good way because it usually ends up that those
those sellers or merchants who can sell for the best price
and the best quality ... you know the natural forces bring the prices
actually down. Okay. And that works out best for
all the people in all of society. So let's take a look at what he has is his
quote here. Every individual, meaning every person.
Neither intends to promote, so meaning the the individual really isn't doing
this to help society. Neither intends to promote or
you know to push or to encourage public interest. So he's not doing it for
the public. He's not doing it for everybody else.
Nor know how much he is promoting it. Yeah.
By the way he is naturally behaving you know, trying to search out the best price
and the best quality and therefore you know, those sellers that can't provide
that they'll either fail or go out of
business. Or you know due to competition they will improve, by either you know,
offering better quality merchandise at a better price.
He only intends his own security. So the person who's buying it you know the
consumer is really just interested in his own benefit.
His own security, and by directing that
industry you know, by, by his behavior of the way he searches our prices.
In such a manner, in such a way as it produce may be its greatest
value. So it just because he behaves this way,
it ends up you know , with the best situation.
He intends only his own gain. So again he's repeating the site he's not he
wasn't really doing it for the better of society. To help the
common man, he was really doing it for his own interests.
He is in this as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an
end which was in no part of his intentions. Yeah. So in his writings , he
mentioned about unintended consequences. But that's
what he means. It wasn't of his intention. So he didn't
intend for this to happen. All right. The invisible hand I don't
know a few people have ideas about what he means by this.
I don't know maybe he means the natural forces of
you know, capitalism and and searching maybe that's the
invisible hand or maybe God has something to do with it. I don't know
there's a few theories out there. A few people have ideas but this is still
part of the quote. All right. Let's continue here. The term was later
popular, popularized in the mid 1900's by
sociologist, Robert K. Menton Yeah. All right. And it's
probably he used it probably more the way we use
it today. Because a lot of times we do things ... either the government or
some other organizations, They try to change things and move things
sometimes. They there's a lot of unintended
consequences, They meant for something good to happen,
but they weren't careful enough and maybe it led to some bad things happen.
All right. So let's , So let's look at the first examples. It kind of explains it.
The sociologist, Menton used his analysis that many deliberate you know many
deliberate acts meant to cause social change has often
led to unintended consequences. So you try to do
these things probably to improve the society or you know, what you thought
was better or right for people, but sometimes it ended up backfiring. Or it
ended up having results that you weren't
expecting. That weren't good. All right. Let's continue. Or let's
look at the second example here. Some commentators claim that all the
lockdowns due to the virus around the world may
have unintended consequences. The suicide rate has
skyrocketed due to many businesses going bankrupt. All right. This is in a couple of
different ways. Maybe the business men themselves, a lot of people built up
businesses. It took them 10 years 20 years to build it up and
some of them are completely going bankrupt now and losing
it and sometimes they just can't handle that .
And or if not that. You know, maybe they find themselves suddenly poorer
causing all kinds of family troubles. Maybe marriages are breaking up. There's
a lot of bad things actually happening due to all these
lockdowns. Okay. And doctors I've also seen this and
doctors claim delayed screenings and treatment
for other diseases may lead to more deaths maybe even more
deaths than is you know , presently happening
with this virus. Because people are not going to the hospital to be screened to
be checked. Like if somebody actually has cancer,
maybe you won't find it early. It'll end up
advancing more and more because there... nobody wants to go to the hospital
because of this virus that's out there right now.
Or or maybe some people . Maybe they there's some signs that there's a
problem. But you know they want to avoid the hospital,
and you know maybe they should be being checked out um
You know, this could lead to other serious problems
with people's health and maybe cause some deaths.
Okay. So yeah plus all the money printing. You know because
of these businesses , there's a lot of stimulus around the world.
All this money printing and continuous closure could lead to a worldwide
economic collapse. If nothing else it's definitely leading
to inflation. Prices are going up all over the place.
So this is going to hurt people too, because you know that you're spending
money . Your buying power is going to go down. So again these are more unintended
consequences from all these lockdowns. Basically
so you know sometimes we do have a phrase in English. We sometimes say that
you know, sometimes the cure is worse than the
disease. You know, this is the first time that we ever
really had a lot of lockdowns due to viruses, especially when we
you know, didn't allow healthy people to go out. You know, especially worldwide
like this. Anyway, let's continue. And we have number
I did a video on you could look that one
up. This is a good one the famous proverb the road to hell
is paved with good intentions. It really kind of means the same thing here.
It suggests that sometimes things originally meant
to help often lead to unintended consequences and the
suggestion here is they may lead to negative ones. The worse ones than you
thought you know you were trying to solve the problem.
Anyway, I hope you got it. I hope you know,
all these examples help to clarify you know, what this term actually means.
Anyway , thank you for your time. Bye-bye.