Adam Smith Is Still the GOAT After 250 Years

I’ve long thought that calling Adam Smith the father of economics seriously understates his significance. In some ways he was indeed the first economist, and The Wealth of Nations, published 250 years ago this week, was indeed the discipline’s seminal text. But his ambitions and insights extended so much further than the dismal science as now conceived. In many ways, his modern followers, intent on narrowing and thereby desiccating the field, have let him down.

The breadth of his thinking is hard for modern readers to grasp because his prose was ornately opaque even by the standards of his time. Scholars argue about what he really meant and didn’t mean – a literature that doesn’t rival the one dedicated to Karl Marx (who was much influenced by Smith) because nothing could, but which trundles on and shows no sign of exhausting the source material. Meantime, for non-specialists, Smith is simply an avatar of laissez-faire capitalism. What a pity his legacy has come to this.