525. In Search of the Real Adam Smith

Freakonomics Radio

Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 8 December 2022

⏱️ 47 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

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.)

Transcript

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0:00.0	The story we are beginning today is a story about one man, but it's also a story about
0:09.1	the whole world.
0:10.6	This one man happens to be an 18th century economist.
0:14.5	I hope that doesn't kill your interest because this is a good story.
0:19.3	This economist was born in Scotland in 1723.
0:22.8	Next year, we'll mark the 300th anniversary of his birth, but his ideas are still incredibly
0:28.4	powerful today.
0:30.2	Why?
0:31.2	There's many reasons his thinking was powerful, interestingly not the reason that most people
0:35.7	think.
0:37.1	He did think like an economist.
0:39.7	He believes in free markets and a free society.
0:42.6	There's no getting around that.
0:44.2	But he was much more than that.
0:46.2	He forces you to look at yourself and realize what makes you tick, what pushes your buttons,
0:51.2	your bells, tighten your shoelaces.
1:02.5	He was himself a lovely man.
1:07.2	He always had lots of friends who was a good nature guy.
1:09.7	They're easy to get along with.
1:11.6	He did have quirks, very absent-minded, mumbling to himself, not really paying attention
1:17.1	to what's going on.
1:19.9	But it was his ideas that mattered and his ideas have reverberated.
	...

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