What do you think Adam Smith would make of the UK economy today?

Oh, Goli.

He'd think it's in a great pickle.

I think he'd actually think that it's one of the most tyrannical systems that he'd ever discovered.

The idea that government should be taking 40% of the national income in taxes of one sort

and another, not just direct taxes on income, but taxes on everything you spend, taxes

on air travel, all sorts of hidden taxes, taxes on work, taxes on jobs.

He would think that this is the most oppressive regime in the whole world.

That is Aiman Butler.

I'm a director of the Adam Smith Institute, which is a free market sink tank based in London.

In our previous episode, in search of the real Adam Smith,

we traveled to Scotland to see where Smith was born and spent most of his life.

That's the poor pit, so he would have been baptized in the front of the church now.

He seems to have been a sociable individual who took a full part in the life of the university.

Today, we're down in London.

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.

Did Smith, for instance, really see governments as tyrannical?

He distrust politicians, both their abilities and often even their intentions.

We'll find out when and where the modern view of Smith gained traction.

The Chicago School picked up a few aspects of Smith's thought and made it the whole of Smith's thought.

And we'll hear how this interpretation of Smith is often quite wrong.

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