Capitalism can feel all-encompassing.

The free market, the division of labor, the mysterious, invisible hand.

If you live in a capitalist society long enough, you stop seeing this system for what it is, an invention.

And one that sprung out of a very different context. for what it is, an invention.

And one that sprung out of a very different context.

Adam Smith was an 18th century Scottish philosopher, and he wrote the landmark 1776 book, The Wealth of Nations,

which you've almost certainly heard of.

But this work was a lot more nuanced than the sloganized tropes that you might know from it.

At the heart of Smith's capitalist vision was his criticism of a different system, mercantilism,

which felt like the all-encompassing economic system of his day.

In fact, Smith, the so-called father of capitalism, really thought of himself as a moral philosopher first.

And he thought of his 1759 book Theory of Moral Sentiments as his real magnum opus.

So why do we remember Adam Smith as some kind of capitalist champion?

I'm Sean Elling, and this is The Gray Area. Music capitalist champion.

I'm Sean Elling, and this is the gray area.

My guest today is Glory Lou. She's a lecturer at Harvard and the author of Adam Smith's America,

how a Scottish philosopher became an icon of American capitalism.

Lou tells the story behind the story of Smith.

Her book is, of course, about Smith's ideas, but it's really

about how his legacy has been used and abused in America for all kinds of political

and ideological reasons. Her work is part of a broader effort to revisit Smith in light

of all this revisionism. I didn't realize how much I actually dug Smith until I read Lou's book back in January of

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