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The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

Has Scotland Forgotten Adam Smith? | Interview: Samuel Gregg

The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg

The Dispatch

Politics, News

4.76.6K Ratings

🗓️ 30 March 2026

⏱️ 73 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Continuing our epic series of first-time Remnant guests, Jonah Goldberg sits down with the political economists Samuel Gregg to discuss Adam Smith, the Scottish Enlightenment, the social question, shiny shoe buckles, the East India Company, mercantilism, liberalism’s origins, Burke, and the new-right’s rejection of free markets. Show Notes:—Samuel Gregg’s Law and Liberty article on Adam Smith—Jonah’s book: Suicide of the West—Jamelle Bouie’s attack on Suicide of the West—Jonah’s response to Jamelle Bouie—Daniel B. Klein - “‘Liberal’ as a Political Adjective (in English), 1769–1824”—Quentin Skinner - Liberty before Liberalism—Gregg’s NR article on Smith and Burke—Hayek on Hayek: An Autobiographical Dialogue—“Why I am Not a Conservative” by F. A. Hayek The Remnant is a production of ⁠The Dispatch⁠, a digital media company covering politics, policy, and culture from a non-partisan, conservative perspective. To access all of The Dispatch’s offerings—including access to all of Jonah’s G-File newsletters—⁠click here⁠. If you’d like to remove all ads from your podcast experience, consider becoming a premium Dispatch member ⁠by clicking here⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Ladies and gentlemen, can I please have your attention.

0:18.0

Can you digger?

0:27.5

Greetings, your listeners.

0:28.5

This is Jonah Goldberg, host of the Remnant podcast, brought to you by the Dispatch

0:31.4

and Dispatch Media.

0:33.4

Again, in this time of intense international conflict in the Middle East and heightening political tension here at home, we've decided to go completely on the news and talk about Adam Smith and related issues.

0:47.1

And so I'm delighted to have here, I believe for the first time, which is shame on me, Samuel Gregg, you know, like, I'm very proud to have the Cliff Asnus chair

0:54.7

and Applied Liberty at the American Enterprise Institute, but I will say the Friedrich Hayek chair

0:59.8

in economics and economic history is a pretty awesome chair, and he holds it at the American

1:05.0

Institute for Economic Research, where he is also head Puba and president, two different titles.

1:10.3

He wears different hats.

1:11.9

He's written a whole bunch of books, including the Commercial Society, William

1:16.3

Ropke's political economy, becoming Europe, reasoned faith in the struggle for Western civilization

1:22.2

and many others.

1:23.8

And we wanted to have them on in part because he wrote a really just a wonderful piece

1:26.9

for over at Law and Liberty, which puts out great stuff about Adam Smith called a deeply human vision. And so we figured it would start there, but we may venture far and wide. But for now, Samuel Gregg, welcome to the remnant. Thanks for having me on, Jurner. It's great to be here. Okay, so why don't we just sort of start. I mean, I've read the piece, obviously, but normally if you had a book here, I would say, what's your book about? But what made you want to write this article and what's it about? Well, as you know, and I'm sure your listeners know, this is the 250th anniversary of the wealth of nations, published in 1776. Providentially the same year as the

2:02.0

American Revolution, though I'm pretty sure that the men in Philadelphia had not read the book

2:07.6

by that time. It was five months. And books took a long time to cross the Atlantic at that time.

2:13.3

And they had a lot of stuff on their plate. Yeah, they were a little busy right then.

2:16.8

Although they were thinking a lot about economic issues, it turns out.

2:20.9

And some of those issues are questions that Smith actually explores in the last chapters of the

2:26.1

wealth of nations.

...

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