[LiquidSky]

Can you provide a source for that? I've never read that it was meant by Smith to be satirical anywhere. It was written as a critique of mercantilist and physiocratic economic theories that had previously dominated European policy but had become antiquated by Smith's time, and to offer a new set of economic ideas for the emerging industrial era.

The parent is right, though, that it's not the Bible of the Free Market that so many people who haven't read it seem to think it is. While it does argue against the older regulatory economic regimes, it's not some ancap laissez-faire anti-government screed.

[vageli]

I didn't mean to present my opinion as fact, and apologies if it sounded as though I had some authoritative source on this view.

However, it seems I am not alone in this view.

> "Indeed, Smith suspected that those quickest to sing his praises had failed to understand the main arguments of his work. He later described The Wealth of Nations as a ‘very violent attack … upon the whole commercial system of Great Britain’. Despite this, his vocal political cheerleaders in Parliament continued to prop up the very system that Smith was railing against."

https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-s...

[asplake]

Right. I’m currently listening to Mariana Mazzucato’s ‘The value of everything’ which begins with a really excellent history of economics, placing Smith in exactly the context you describe.