In her new book, Adam Smith's America, Gloria Lou argues that it was the University of Chicago economics department who sort of cherry picked Smith's writing and turned him into a patron saint of free market capitalism. Can you untangle this for me? I don't think there's anything in the theory of moral sentiments that is an indictment of what we would normally call free market economics. But there are things in Smith that certainly conflict with standard free market dogma. So in that sense, I've rejected a lot of the utilitarian foundation of my field.
Economists and politicians have turned him into a mascot for free-market ideology. Some on the left say the right has badly misread him. Prepare for a very Smithy tug of war. (Part 2 of “In Search of the Real Adam Smith.”)