My previous post highlighted an unsolved mystery involving two of the foremost European thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment — Adam Smith and Jean-Jacques Rousseau — an enigma posed by Paul Sagar in his 2022 book Adam Smith Reconsidered. Specifically, what did Smith think of Rousseau, or what influence did Rousseau have on Smith? In addition, by my count Professor Sagar also identifies or mentions at least four more important “Adam Smith problems”:

1. The ‘real’ Das Adam Smith Problem. First off, Prof Sagar refers to what he calls “the real Das Adam Smith Problem” in the Introduction to his book: “How could a first-rate moral philosopher like Smith think that morality was not fatally compromised by the existence of [commercial society] …,” i.e. the tension between private and public virtue on the one hand and the pursuit of material luxury goods on the other? (See Sagar 2022, p. 3, emphasis in the original.)
2. Fellow feeling versus the love of domination. Next, Sagar compares and contrasts Smith’s theory of “fellow feeling” with his (Smith’s) realist recognition of man’s love to dominate and enslave other men and then asks, “How can we be both fundamentally disposed towards fellow feeling with each other, and yet so liable to oppress and dominate others when we get the chance, as Smith thought we evidently are?” (Sagar 2022, p. 63. See generally the chapter on “Domination, Liberty, and the Rule of Law” (Ch. 2), especially the subsection on “Slavery and the Love of Domination” on pp. 60-67.)
3. The conspiracy of the merchants. In the words of Sagar, “… nobody even passingly familiar with Smith’s works will be surprised to hear that he exhibited a profound hostility to the merchants ….” (Sagar 2022, p. 188.) Although it is easy to appreciate the source of Smith’s hostility — the dangers to consumers of merchants colluding to raise prices, obtain ill-gotten subsidies, and bend the rules in their favor — this hostility is paradoxical. On the one hand, the merchant classes “are dangerous to a modern commercial society” (Sagar 2022, p. 207), since they will often collude to enrich themselves at the expense of consumers, yet at the same time, they are “entirely necessary to [a modern commercial society’s] continued operation and flourishing.” (Ibid.) But how can the merchant classes be both necessary and dangerous, or good and bad, simultaneously? In a nutshell, they are good when they are pursuing legitimate commercial activities and playing by a fair set of rules that equally apply to all firms, but they are bad when they try to bend these rules or conspire to raise prices or obtain subsidies or other special favors from those in power at the expense of the general welfare of the public, and this delicate dichotomy, in turn, poses an even deeper and more fundamental Smithian paradox: how can we ever hope to constrain the self-serving rent-seeking activities of merchants without stifling their wealth-maximizing commercial activities?
4. Smith’s politics. Towards the end of his book, Sagar mentions in passing one last enigma: if Smith were alive today, would his politics be ‘left’ or ‘right’? (See, for example, the sources listed on page 210, footnote 26 of Sagar’s book as well as the infographic below; hat tip: Reddit user u/entropy13.)