It is one thing to write a book that changes how we see the economy.
It is another to watch that book outlive its author, its context, and even its meaning.
Adam Smith, when he published The Wealth of Nations in 1776, could not have known that he was not only birthing economics —
he was also becoming a symbol.
A torchbearer of liberalism in its many, sometimes contradictory, forms.
Today, we speak of economic liberalism and political liberalism as though they move together.
Freedom in the marketplace, freedom in the vote.
Open trade, open speech.
But Smith’s fortune — the legacy of his thought — is more complex than its slogans.
It is a story not just of freedom gained, but of freedom misread, repurposed, and reduced.
To understand Smith’s true fortune, we must walk with him — slowly — through what he meant,
and how we’ve come to want from him more than he ever offered,
or less than he actually gave.
The Double Face of Liberalism
At its heart, liberalism was a response to oppression —
a refusal to be ruled without consent, taxed without reason, or silenced without trial.
It championed the individual — not in isolation, but in dignity.
Political liberalism asked:
– Who gets to decide?
– Who belongs?
– Who is free?
Economic liberalism, emerging alongside it, asked:
– Who gets to trade?
– Who can own?
– What happens when the state steps back?
For Smith, these were not separate worlds.
He saw the market and the polity as part of one shared experiment:
Could a society flourish when people were trusted to act, choose, produce, and exchange freely,
within the bounds of law, virtue, and justice?
His answer was cautious, not blind.
Yes, markets can coordinate.
Yes, self-interest can align with social good.
But only if justice protects the vulnerable,
only if education preserves the moral imagination,
only if power does not concentrate and calcify.
Freedom was never meant to be amoral.
It was meant to be grounded.
The Rise of Market Worship
But over time, a strange thing happened.
As Smith’s name rose, his nuance disappeared.
The invisible hand became a myth.
Markets became sacred.
Government became suspect.
And freedom was narrowed to mean simply: less interference, more trade.
This was not Smith’s liberalism.
This was the version born in later centuries —
Manchester liberalism, stripped of sentiment.
Neoliberalism, stripped of memory.
Smith warned of monopolies.
We built them in his name.
He feared the moral numbness of repetitive labor.
We automated human purpose away.
He called for public education, public works, public ethics.
We quoted his hand, but cut off his heart.
His fortune became our license.
And we called it freedom.
Freedom and the Fabric
Real liberalism — the kind Smith envisioned — was never a call for isolated liberty.
It was a call for interconnected freedom.
Where my liberty depends on your dignity.
Where markets are embedded in moral life, not floating above it.
Smith believed that when people are free to exchange, to create, to choose, they will often do good —
but only if the system they inhabit rewards integrity, discourages domination, and makes room for all to rise.
His trust in the individual was not naive.
It was bounded by conscience.
And he feared — rightly — what happens when wealth detaches from labor,
when commerce grows faster than character,
when the logic of price drowns the question of value.
The Responsibility of Inheritance
So what is Smith’s fortune, really?
It is not just a theory of trade.
It is a question about how we share space,
how we balance liberty with belonging,
and whether we can protect the soul of freedom from being consumed by its shadow —
the freedom to exploit, to extract, to ignore.
To inherit Smith is not to mimic his era.
It is to listen to the questions he left behind:
– How do we keep markets moral?
– How do we educate the free to be wise?
– What should not be for sale?
– What is freedom for, if not for each other?
Adam Smith gave us a grammar of freedom,
but he did not write the full poem.
That is left to us —
to choose whether liberalism is a shield for the few,
or a foundation for all.
His fortune is not found in the market alone.
It lives in the balance —
between autonomy and care,
between ambition and equity,
between what we want to do
and what we owe to one another.