Adam Smith Reconsidered

Is Adam Smith an apologist for capitalism who viewed it as the fourth and final stage of socio-economic development? Was Smith provoked into his moral and economic defence of capitalism by Rousseau’s Second Discourse? Much current Smith literature would suggest the answer to both questions is yes. But, perhaps, questions like these indicate that something has gone very wrong with our interpretations of Smith? Paul Sagar thinks so. We explore what needs to change and why in this conversation about his newly published and enjoyably iconoclastic Adam Smith Reconsidered: History, Liberty and the Foundations of Modern Politics (Princeton, 2022).

Dr Paul Sagar is Senior Lecturer in Political Theory at King’s College London.