The unlikely story of how Americans canonized Adam Smith as the patron saint of free markets Originally published in 1776, Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was lauded by America’s founders as a landmark work of Enlightenment thinking about national wealth, statecraft, and moral virtue. Today, Smith is one of the most influential icons of economic thought in America. Glory Liu traces how generations of Americans have read, reinterpreted, and weaponized Smith’s ideas, revealing how his popular image as a champion of American-style capitalism and free markets is a historical invention. Drawing on a trove of illuminating archival materials, Liu tells the story of how an unassuming Scottish philosopher captured the American imagination and played a leading role in shaping American economic and political ideas. She shows how Smith became known as the father of political economy in the nineteenth century and was firmly associated with free trade, and how, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Chicago School of Economics transformed him into the preeminent theorist of self-interest and the miracle of free markets. Liu explores how a new generation of political theorists and public intellectuals has sought to recover Smith’s original intentions and restore his reputation as a moral philosopher. Charting the enduring fascination that this humble philosopher from Scotland has held for American readers over more than two centuries, Adam Smith’s America shows how Smith continues to be a vehicle for articulating perennial moral and political anxieties about modern capitalism.

John E. Hill’s Adam Smith’s Sociability and the American Dream seeks to correct the three misunderstandings that have hindered the pursuit of the American dream and contributed to excessive individualism at the expense of community. Market fundamentalists ignore the importance of Adam Smith’s impartial spectator for capitalism; his ideal economy was not a free market but a sociable and fair one. A fair market would promote individuality within vibrant communities and would be consistent with Smith’s “justice, liberty, and equality” formula. Such a sociable market would also be more productive. Second, many Christians misunderstand the love your neighbor commandment, excluding the outsider, so explicit in the parable. Failure to follow John Adams’s warnings that aristocrats are dangerous in a republic. Free market advocates devalue the immense contributions communities make to the economy. Greater sociability would also facilitate the pursuit of happiness. It would not be necessary to reinvent the wheel to move to this more ideal society. Cooperative organizations already exist in the United States and in other countries as models for reform.

This text discusses the continuing relevance of one of the most prominent economists of the twentieth century. The contributors explore the continuing relevance of Galbraith's arguments to current controversies and problems.

Vol. 25 is the report of the commissioner of education for 1880; v. 29, report for 1877.