This second column, commemorating the semiquincentennial of economics, examines Adam Smith’s views on enterprise. (Spoiler alert – he is still turning in his grave)
Smith believed in individual freedom and self-interest. A famous quote states, “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” The free market and profit incentivize merchants, craftsmen, and artisans to provide meat, beer, and bread, not because of some altruistic feeling for others, but because it is in their best interest.
In perhaps his most famous saying, he invokes the “invisible hand” of the free market. In fact, he only mentions the invisible hand twice, once also in his previous book The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In The Wealth of Nations, he states “[T]hey are led by an invisible hand … and thus, without intending it, without making it, advance the interest of society”. The Wealth of Nations is built on individuals following their rational self-interest and making a nation wealthier than if someone deliberately set out to try and make society better off, like the old socialist central planners.
The Heritage Foundation provides a list of the most economically free countries in the world, and they are generally wealthier than the least free. The top 5 economically free countries are Singapore, Switzerland, Ireland, Australia, and Taiwan. The least free are North Korea, Cuba, Venezuela, Sudan, and Zimbabwe. The United States’ economic freedom score has generally been declining over the last 20 years, with a small recovery in 2026. In recent years, the right and left have interfered with free markets, whether by taxing imports, taking stakes in companies, or restricting housing markets or AI data centers.
