Freakonomics Radio Was Adam Smith Really a Right-Winger? (Update)
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May 6, 2026 
Russ Roberts, economist and writer, joins Glory Liu, political scientist and Smith scholar, and Eamonn Butler, free market think tank leader. They spar over how Adam Smith became a symbol of capitalism. They trace how America and Chicago economics reshaped his image. They revisit the invisible hand, privatization, public goods, and whether Smith was far more morally complex than his modern branding.
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Early America Read Smith As A Manual Not Scripture
- Early Americans used Smith less as a sacred authority than as a technical handbook for statecraft, trade, and national wealth.
- Glory Liu says Madison, Hamilton, and Jefferson read him to think through commerce, tariffs, defense, and banking.
Chicago Rebranded Smith Into A Free Market Mascot
- Glory Liu argues Chicago economists narrowed Smith into a mascot for self-interest, prices, and deregulation.
- She says thinkers like Hayek, Stigler, and Friedman elevated a few Smithian concepts and gave them the authority of social science.
The Invisible Hand Became Bigger Than Smith Meant
- Smith’s invisible hand was a limited metaphor about unintended consequences, not a blanket claim that markets always self-correct.
- Craig Smith and Dennis Rasmussen stress that Smith also described negative unintended outcomes, collusion, inequality, and anxiety in commercial life.
