Rethinking Adam Smith - More than the "invisible hand"

As soon as you say the name Adam Smith, the first thoughts for many include "invisible hand" and "capitalism". The Adam Smith that most people think they know is one-dimensional. Perhaps that is inevitable for many thinkers. We tag them with a single word or view. We often don't like multi-dimensional thinkers. We like simple descriptions. Have many revered Smith without understand his writings? Yes, and this should be rectified.

The new book Adam Smith's America tries to find a balance between a one-dimensional Adam Smith and the complexities of a man who was a moral philosopher. Glory Liu present different interpretations of Smith through time and tries to link the Adam Smith of The Wealth of Nations with the Smith of The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Liu weaves a history of how the Adam Smith after his publication in 1776 differed from the interpretation in 1876 and again in 1976. She asks and presents a more balanced view of Smith albeit he introduces her own biases. 

Liu would like to emphasize that Smith was not an economist but a moral philosopher; however, had he only wrote Moral Sentiments, he would have been an unknown and only viewed in passing. Moral thinking shaped the Wealth of Nations, but it is not a work of philosophy. Economists especially from the Chicago School focus not on his moral thinking but his description of market behavior. Yes, they were biased, but they try and wed Smith with economics, price theory, and a view of capital as a system. There is not an attempt to fit this into a deeper philosophical view. 

Rethinking Adam Smith could have been condensed with less emphasis on the bias against the Chicago school. It is a useful to read about the changing interpretations of Smith, but that is a not a unique problem. It is just part of field of history that interpretations change with the times. Refocusing on Smith the philosopher does not change his key focus on market dynamics.