Remembering Adam Smith

El Cabrero has an excellent post up at progressivehistorians on the appropriation of Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations author and free trade advocate, by the corporatist/capitalist global elite.

Smith, as any right wing hack will tell you, was an advocate of independent businesses, unregulated by the government; he argued that with unfettered competition, the

public good is often promoted as if by "an invisible hand."

Sounds like a great icon for global capitalism-- except that, as always, the people who quote Adam Smith seem to be picking and choosing pretty carefully from Smith's body of work. Get this: he believed workers deserve a living wage, that the rich should pay more taxes, and he didn't trust capitalists or monopolies.