The Wealth of Nations was a rhetorical campaign for capitalism, not scholarship

Evidence

From his notes on the division of labor in the eponymous pin factory to the “invisible hand” guiding selfish actions to common purposes, Smith’s sound bites are well known. The details of what Smith said about the economy are far less well known and quite surprising. Smith brought together much of the scattered work of early economists on the nature of money, economic growth, the role of capital and labor, and a host of other issues, and then had the good sense to put it in one accessible place: The Wealth of Nations. As Albert Hirschman observed, this book was no academic project. It was an argument for capitalism before its triumph, and a very successful argument, too. — Mark Blyth, Austerity, 292

Categorization

• XREF: Hirschman’s point about pre-triumph advocacy resonates with Mattei’s genealogy of austerity advocates before their policy triumph. — connects to: Economic change does not directly supply the content of capitalist ideas; H. G. Wells fictionalized the League of Nations as a future scientific world government — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists: The End of Empire and the…, 294
• SHARE: Worth sending to a historian of economic thought who’d appreciate the Hirschman framing of Smith as pre-triumph advocate.

Broader Connections

• Economic change does not directly supply the content of capitalist ideas #expands (0.78)
• H. G. Wells fictionalized the League of Nations as a future scientific world government #exemplifies (0.75) — Quinn Slobodian, Globalists, 294