The Adam Smith you don’t know: How we hijacked the father of capitalism

By Janet Marugg | FāVS News Columnist

We should know more of Adam Smith through his work in the world and by the company he kept. His circle was the brainy sort. He knew David Hume, Voltaire and Benjamin Franklin; he hobnobbed as a member of intellectual clubs and was a key figure in the Scottish Enlightenment. The man deserved more than our ignorance of his work, especially because we claim it as our own.

We should know Smith as the father of capitalism. His crowning achievement became free market gospel, but somehow he is left out of the Wall Street brochure. The negligence of economics textbooks is staggering. Where is the chapter on Smith, the man who gave us our claim to national wealth with his work appropriately titled, “The Wealth of Nations”? Why the secrecy? 

Raised by a devout Presbyterian mother, Smith attended church regularly. This Christian influence became “the invisible hand” described in his treatise. According to Smith, this invisible hand guides healthy and educated people to do God’s work. Smith believed moral people were guided to regulate markets for the good of God’s creation. 

Smith believed in the necessity of public investment, that workers — not capital — are the source of national prosperity. Nonnegotiable. Smith’s capitalism insisted that monopolies be broken and that concentrated power was a threat to freedom. 

Capitalism with a conscience

The original architect of capitalism defended fairness, protections, workers’ rights and the moral duty to share prosperity. Smith’s capitalism demanded that people have education, healthcare and shelter. He claimed that opportunities were not luxuries, but the foundation of a functioning republic. 

To Smith, the free market only works on a level playing field and when the rules are fair. Capitalism’s purpose, insists the system’s creator, is an economy that produces the flourishing of all human beings, not the hoarding of wealth by a few. He believed prosperity is meaningful only when it’s shared.

If Smith time-traveled 250 years into the future, he would not recognize what we call capitalism today, but he would clearly recognize his capitalism bastardized into corporatism. (In his pre-corporation days, he called it “mercantilism.”) And if he time-traveled back again to 1776, he’d have to write a chapter exposing the legalized bribery of corporate lobbyists as a republic’s immoral use of capital. 

Smith allowed for capitalism to have a soul and more than a smidge of character. True capitalism rejects brutality and favors generosity. It champions reciprocity and enforces our Western values of justice, education and knowledge, pluralism, liberty, hope and opportunity. 

Getting the textbooks straight

If wishes came true, my values and morals would match my economic system. My government would manage its heralded capitalist economic system as Smith intended — or call it what it is: crony corporatism. Get the textbooks straight. 

Smith’s capitalism asks us one thing: How ethical can our economic system be? His religiosity didn’t last his whole life, but he never gave up the idea that it’s easier for people to live moral lives inside ethical systems, and that makes sense to me. If I have an invisible hand, it points me here.

The views expressed in this opinion column are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect the views of FāVS News. FāVS News values diverse perspectives and thoughtful analysis on matters of faith and spirituality.

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