Can anyone evaluate the extent to which peoples view of adam smith being an advocate of unbridled capitalism?
To build on my answer beforehand, you always have extremists. Those at one end would support massive government interference, regulation, taxation and spending (“big government”) and those at the other end would be more free-market (“unbridled”). Adam Smith is *closer* to the unbridled end, so people with these views choose him as an advocate, as he’s an intellectual giant. When Smith wrote “Wealth…” in 1776, capitalism was in its infancy and closer to the “big government” end. Aristocrats held most of the nation’s wealth and a huge chunk of the population were stuck in agricultural jobs, rarely creating more wealth than was needed to feed, clothe and heat themselves and pay their aristocratic landlords rent. Mercantilism was the economic received wisdom of the day, with countries only reluctantly importing and very keenly exporting. Smith advocated free trade, as both countries improve themselves by it; which is certainly closer to the “unbridled” view, as it means the Crown, the Pa
