Aemon Butler is director of the Adam Smith Institute, a free market think tank based in London. What do you think Adam Smith would make of the UK economy today? "I think he'd actually think that it's one of the most tyrannical systems," says Butler. We are trying to figure out how a moral philosopher from 18th century Scotland became the patron saint of free market capitalism in the current century.
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.”)