Misreadings of Smith: What He Didn't Say
How Adam Smith has been selectively quoted and misrepresented by people across the political spectrum.
The Free-Market Fundamentalist Smith
The most common misreading of Smith casts him as an advocate of unregulated capitalism and minimal government. This version of Smith — the one invoked by politicians who want to cut taxes and deregulate — relies on selective quotation.
In reality, Smith supported: public education (especially for workers degraded by the division of labor); infrastructure spending (roads, bridges, harbors); banking regulation; progressive taxation ('it is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion'); and regulation of monopolies.
Smith was deeply suspicious of the wealthy and powerful. He warned that businessmen's proposals 'ought always to be listened to with great precaution' because they come from 'an order of men, whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public, who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public.'
