Smith acknowledged the state exists to defend the rich against the poor

Evidence

Smith fully acknowledges that the market cannot exist without the state. Indeed, an entire book of The Wealth of Nations details the necessity of the state supplying external defense, internal justice, and even the training and education of workers. Most interestingly, he is disarmingly honest concerning the political effects of capitalism, noting that “wherever there is property there is great inequality,” such that “the acquisition of valuable and extensive property … necessarily requires the establishment of civil government.” A civil government that, “in so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.” — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 299

Categorization

• XREF: This candid admission by the founding liberal economist undermines the anti-state reading of Smith used in later austerity discourse — directly relevant to Mattei’s genealogy.
• SEED: Article angle: how the same thinker gets claimed by both the pro-state and anti-state camps — the selective canonization of Adam Smith.