…the more they stay the same.

I have moved on from Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws to Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in my Honors course on Western thought (it is being taught by a professor who is part of this blogging consortium, in case you are curious; it is part of my daily reading).

Many, many things have stood out to me so far, but I would like to share two of them here. The first thing has to do with the back of the book (I am reading the cheap paperback published by Bantam and edited by Edwin Cannan). The back of the book plainly states:

He argues passionately in favor of free trade, yet stood up for the little guy [emphasis mine – BC].

This mischaracterization of classical liberalism (libertarianism) is not limited to the publishers of Adam Smith’s most popular work, and…