This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Thursday, March 10th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

The foundations of many parts of economics can be found in Adam Smith's the wealth of nations,

but it would be a mistake to call Adam Smith a radical.

Russ Roberts, Economics Professor at George Mason University, an advisor to the Cato Institute Center for Trade Policy

Studies, discusses the wealth of nations on this the 235th anniversary of the book's publication.

Adam Smith, I think, is both characterized incorrectly by people who are, for lack of better

terms, on the left and the right.

That is, I think a lot of people on the left have tried to reclaim Smith in a lot of ways and

perhaps appropriately so, given his views toward business.

And also his views on public policy generally.

He's not an anarchist, he's not an anarcho-capitalist.

He correctly understood as I think all good free market economists should

understand that you shouldn't be pro-business you should be pro-market

having businesses fail is extremely important. Keeping an

on businesses relentless desire to use the political process to keep out

competitors is a really good idea and I think Smith understood

that is you know it's still relevant today his insights into the natural impulses

of people in business to keep out competitors and to be able to charge high prices.

So I think the left claims and for that and they also like to point out that he was not an

anarchist, he was in favor of some social policies that would be, we would would call so-called progressive policies.

Not the wrong with Smith has many great insights and some of them are true even for the left and they're not all

...