Adam Smith in his time and ours (updated)

Mark Koyama at the Oxonomics blog has a message on The Fight over Adam Smith. He writes

Unlike other philosophers or economists of the past, Adam Smith is a uniquely tussled over figure. Both left and right claim Adam Smith as their own. As a result as Gavin Kennedy's blog demonstrates, Smith is consistently misappropriated and misrepresented by journalists and by scholars. I was wondering why this was? I suppose one reason is that unlike Hobbes, Rousseau, Ricardo or Marx, or even his contemporaries like David Hume, Smith is perceived to be 'the' thinker of modern liberal capitalism. Nevertheless, this leads to some painful attempts at 're-interpretation'.

Many of the re-interpretations are often wrong. Gavin Kennedy's blog, Adam Smith's Lost Legacy is a great place to get an understanding of Smith's actual views and why so much written about him is wrong.

One point that is worth making is that Smith predated the French Revolution and thus our modern views of "left" and "right" in the political spectrum. As a result it is somewhat pointless to try and fit Smith's views into categorises based on political labels that Smith knew nothing of since they developed only after death. As Koyama points out

This problem undermines attempts to link Smith with modern political parties ...

This something a number of politicians and commentators would do well to remember.

Update: Gavin Kennedy comments on the Koyama message at Left-Right Meaningless for Adam Smith's Politics.