Dennis Rasmussen: How did Adam Smith's Scotland go from backward to forward so quickly? He says that Scotland was undergoing an economic boom at this time, thanks in large part to the Union with England. Rasmussen: This helped produce what came to be called the Scottish Enlightenment.
How did an affable 18th-century “moral philosopher” become the patron saint of cutthroat capitalism? Does “the invisible hand” mean what everyone thinks it does? We travel to Smith’s hometown in Scotland to uncover the man behind the myth. (Part 1 of a series.)