“I have not the least doubt of it for you have made it of bread and butter instead of tea,” said Mr. Damer when Adam Smith, whom he was visiting that morning, declared “it was the worst tea he had ever met with” (Rae 1895, p. 238). The year 2023 marks the 300th anniversary of Smith, this absent-minded and introverted thinker, who enjoyed long solitary walks by the seaside more than anything else, was a fervent admirer of Voltaire, and became a familiar figure for those who saw him walk every morning to work at the Custom House in Edinburgh, absorbed in conversation with himself “with a bunch of flowers in his left hand, and his cane, held by the middle, borne on his right shoulder” (Rae 1895, pp. 329–330). A loyal friend and poor correspondent, Smith left an indelible mark during his life as a remarkable thinker and author of renowned books, which would, as Adam Ferguson wrote to him in April 1776, “form the opinions, and I hope to govern at least the coming generations” (Smith 1987, hereinafter Corr., p. 193).

The works of Adam Smith are filled with quotable moments. The pin factory. The poor man’s son. The invisible hand. The butcher, the brewer, and the baker. The dog and the philosopher. The impartial spectator. The man of system and his chessboard. And our propensity to truck, barter, and exchange. All of these are so well known and so often quoted that I’ve had editors ask me just to refer to them in passing rather than quoting them in full.

“Prose is the Stile in which all the common affairs of Life, all Business and Agreements are made. No one ever made a Bargain in verse.”

LRBL ii.115–116

“We need not be surprised … that the Cartesian philosophy …, though it does not perhaps contain a word of truth, … should nevertheless have been so universally received by all the Learned in Europe at that time. … [They] greedily receive[d] a work which we justly esteem one of the most entertaining Romances that has ever been wrote.”

LRBL ii.134

It is a difficult task to narrow down a favorite passage from a body of work as rich as that of Adam Smith. One of the things that has always amused me about Smith is his use of Scottish examples to make universal points. In one of these he launches himself into the long-running rivalry between Scotland’s two major cities: Edinburgh and Glasgow. Smith lived for a time in both cities and worked on what would become the Wealth of Nations in what were then, as now, two very different cities. In The Wealth of Nations he makes use of this to develop a classic example of Smithian social theory.

“It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our necessities but of their advantages.”

WN I.ii.2

In a discussion of wages and labor in the Wealth of Nations (WN), Adam Smith concludes: “No society can be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged” (Smith [1776] 1994, WN I.viii:90).

“The more opulent therefore the society, labour will always be so much the dearer and work so much the cheaper, and if some opulent countries have lost several of their manufactures and some branches of their commerce by having been undersold in foreign markets by the traders and artisans of poorer countries, who were contented with less profit and smaller wages, this will rarely be found to have been merely the effect of the opulence of the one country and the poverty of the other. Some other cause, we may be assured, must have concurred. The rich country must have been guilty of some great error in its police.”

ED 2.12–2.13

Adam Smith is known as a liberal thinker. The political system that he promotes and describes as one of “perfect justice, perfect liberty, and perfect equality” (Wealth of Nations [1776] 1981; WN IV.ix.17:669) is characterized by the primacy of the rights of non-interference and the protection of a private sphere where every individual directs her life according to her own decisions. The moral justification for the primacy of negative justice is in the second book of The Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he unambiguously states: “Mere justice is, upon most occasions, but a negative virtue, and only hinders us from hurting our neighbor” ([1759] 1982; TMS II.i.1.9:82). For the same reason, the first time I read that book, the following paragraph struck me as an inexplicable contradiction, an incomprehensible lapse in Adam Smith’s thoroughly revised text: A superior may, indeed, sometimes, with universal approbation, oblige those under his jurisdiction to behave, in this respect, with a certain degree of propriety to one another. … The civil magistrate is entrusted with the power not only of preserving the public peace by restraining injustice, but of promoting the prosperity of the commonwealth, by establishing good discipline, and by discouraging every sort of vice and impropriety; he may prescribe rules, therefore, which not only prohibit mutual injuries among fellow-citizens, but command mutual good offices to a certain degree. … Of all the duties of a law-giver, however, this, perhaps, is that which it requires the greatest delicacy and reserve to execute with propriety and judgment. To neglect it altogether exposes the commonwealth to many gross disorders and shocking enormities, and to push it too far is destructive of all liberty, security, and justice. (TMS II.ii.1.8)

There is a great deal of poetry, wit, and wisdom in the writings of Adam Smith, and many wonderful passages. I like this one for several reasons. I like its grammatical austerity. I like that it is active rather than passive. I like the way the verb in the present tense gives the impression of indefinite continuation. I like the way the dual, hylomorphic, meaning of “produce,” as both the act of producing and also the material result of production, corresponds nicely with the dual, hylomorphic, meaning of “constitutes,” as both the act of imposing form and also as the matter of which the product consists.

“Whenever the legislature attempts to regulate the differences between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters. When the regulation, therefore, is in favour of the workmen, it is always just and equitable; but it is sometimes otherwise when in favour of the masters. Thus the law which obliges the masters in several different trades to pay their workmen in money and not in goods, is quite just and equitable” (Smith 1976 [1776]), I.x.c.61, pp. 157–158).

This observation is from an obscure backwater of the Wealth of Nations. It is about companies that were archaic even in 1776: the Russian Company, the Eastland Company, the Hamburgh Company, chartered in Britain in the sixteenth century, and trading mainly in the Baltic. But the comments on regulated companies are a revealing epitome of Adam Smith’s thought. There is the artful language, and one can almost hear Smith’s ironic tone as he dictated these sentences. There is the analytic idiom, so characteristic of the Wealth of Nations, in the juxtaposition of large theories with the details of legal and economic history. There is, above all, the subject, which is also the largest object of inquiry in the Wealth of Nations, or the changing relationship between states and markets.

Selecting a single favorite quote from the work of one’s favorite thinker is quite a challenge. Although I had been immediately enthusiastic about the project when I first heard about it, I struggled with this selection task for weeks. The first reason is that there are just so many quotable passages in Adam Smith’s work that I like very much, and not always on the same grounds. Some quotes I appreciate because they drive home Smith’s broader argument, or because they are philosophically rich, such as his quite Lockean evaluation of long apprenticeships in the Wealth of Nations ([1776] 1976; WN I. x.c.12). Others have been long-time companions for me, either because they require a more meticulous analysis than one would think, for example the famous brewer or baker passage (WN I.ii.2), or because there is something paradoxical about them, such as the quote that describes “the great precept of nature to love ourselves only as our neighbour is capable of loving us” (Theory of Moral Sentiments [1756] 1976; TMS I.i.5.5). And then there are passages that are enormous fun to read because Smith gives free rein to his literary skills and irony, such as the “poor man’s son” passage in the Theory of Moral Sentiments (TMS IV.i.8), or where he sheds his polite restraint, for example when he lashes out against Oxford (TMS V.ii.f.8) or against colluding merchants (WN I.x.c.27). The second reason why the choice wasn’t easy had to do with the underlying, perhaps unintended, incentives of the project itself. Opting for a popular quote came at the risk of more competition and fewer chances in the submission process. In the end, I nevertheless dropped all tactical considerations and went for the well-known opening words in Smith’s first opus magnum, the Theory of Moral Sentiments: “How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it” (TMS I.i.I.1).

“This disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition, though necessary both to establish and to maintain the distinction of ranks and the order of society, is, at the same time, the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.”

TMS I.iii.3.1

“Sympathy, however, cannot, in any sense, be regarded as a selfish principle. When I sympathize with your sorrow or your indignation, it may be pretended, indeed, that my emotion is founded in self-love, because it arises from bringing your case home to myself, from putting myself in your situation, and thence conceiving what I should feel in the like circumstances. But though sympathy is very properly said to arise from an imaginary change of situations with the person principally concerned, yet this imaginary change is not supposed to happen to me in my own person and character, but in that of the person with whom I sympathize. When I condole with you for the loss of your only son, in order to enter into your grief I do not consider what I, a person of such a character and profession should suffer, if I had a son, and if that son was unfortunately to die: but I consider what I should suffer if I was really you, and I not only change circumstances with you, but I change persons and characters.”

“Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage, it is natural that the first improvements of art and industry should be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a market to the produce of every sort of labour, and that they should always be much later in extending themselves into the inland parts of the country. … All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian seas, the antient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and uncivilized state in which we find them at present. … There are in Africa none of those great inlets, such as the Baltic and Adriatic seas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine seas in both Europe and Asia, and the gulphs of Arabia, Persia, India, Bengal, and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: and the great rivers of Africa are at too great a distance from one another to give occasion to any considerable inland navigation.”

WN I.iii.4–8

Adam Smith’s views on inequality have recently been examined with some interest (Rasmussen 2016; Walraevens 2021). But was Smith really genuinely interested in addressing the shortcomings of the society built on the “liberal plan of equality, liberty and justice” (Smith 1975, Wealth of Nations; WN IV.ix)? While critical accounts of Smith’s thought may tend to zero in on his concerns with absolute poverty—or the equality in the “share of the necessaries of life” (Smith 1976, Theory of Moral Sentiments; TMS IV.1.10)—rather than economic inequality, they may perhaps also tend to confuse his account of our tendencies to admire the rich and powerful with the advocacy of a system in which the rich and powerful ride roughshod over the poor and disempowered as long as the order of the society founded on the “distinction of ranks” (TMS I.iii.2) is preserved.

Adam Smith’s excellence in the art of belles lettres is well known and is on vivid display in his most memorable quotes, enriching his arguments and augmenting their impact. Sometimes, however, the effects of time obscure his artistry and purpose. The following passage from the Wealth of Nations ([1776] 1981; WN) is one such example. It contains an overlooked expression of Smith’s liberal vision and serves to encourage further exploration of the relationship between form and substance in his writing.

Most Adam Smith scholars hold that Smith endorsed public provision of education to offset deleterious consequences arising from the division of labor. Smith’s putative endorsement of publicly funded education is taken by some scholars as evidence that he tends more toward progressive than classical liberalism, or that this is a departure from, perhaps an inconsistency with, Smith’s otherwise strong presumption against government intervention in markets. This paper argues that these interpretations are flawed because Smith ultimately does not advocate public provision of education. He raises the idea and explores its potential benefits, but he ultimately does not endorse it. Smith also provides reason to be skeptical of public provision of education, which suggests that his final position may have inclined against it.

Friendship-and-love expresses musings about well-being—while the object of the musings, i.e., “well-being,” is the economist’s substantive satisfaction. Insofar as altruism is about well-being and not the musings, it cannot be subsumed under friendship-and-love. However, what is the basis of the difference between the economist’s substantive satisfaction and friendship-and-love? The answer can be found in Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments, chapter 2: how “mutual sympathy” differs from substantive satisfaction. Smith scholars generally miss the uniqueness of “mutual sympathy” and, indeed, fold it under Smith’s “sympathy” (and “empathy”)—with one exception. Robert Sugden highlights the uniqueness of mutual sympathy. However, he goes to the other end, that is, he folds Smith’s sympathy-and-empathy under mutual sympathy. This paper aims to avoid the folding in either direction. Indeed, it argues that each fellow-feeling deals with a question that is orthogonal to the other. Mutual sympathy originates love-based sociality (friendship-and-love), which can be juxtaposed to interest-based sociality, i.e., substantive satisfaction, such as altruism. These genera of sociality are about the nature of satisfaction or preferences, and hence in contrast to sympathy-and-empathy that are basically about judgments. As judgments, sympathy-and-empathy are ultimately about the nature of decision making, irrespective of whether the decisions concerning love-based or interest-based preferences.