Political theorist Paul Sagar concludes his book Adam Smith Reconsidered with a remarkable claim: “Adam Smith is not a theorist of capitalism” (Sagar, p. 212, emphasis in the original). But this startling conclusion begs the question: if the great Scottish philosopher-economist is not the father of capitalism, then what is he? For Sagar, Smith is, first and foremost, a student of commercial society, with the capitalist system being just one form or type of commercial society.

At this point, we could do one of two things. We could do a deep dive into semantics and try to parse out the true meaning of such terms as “commercial society” and “capitalism”. Or in the alternative — however those complex terms are defined — we could just point out the obvious and call it a day. After all, can’t both things be true at the same time? Can’t Adam Smith be both a theorist of commercial society (as broadly defined by Sagar) and also a proponent, if not a champion, of what today we call capitalism?

I will now conclude my review of Sagar with a final observation. Although Sagar’s beautiful book is well-researched and a must-read for Adam Smith scholars, it leaves two key Smithian questions unanswered: how does the transition from the rule of barons to the rule of law occur, and how can we eradicate “the conspiracy of the merchants” without eradicating the merchants themselves? (See, for example, links #3 and #5 in my recap of previous Sagar posts, which I am reblogging below.) I await Sagar’s replies!