"The Wealth of Nations"

[GinandTonic]

Yeah, Keynes was the man until Stagflation hit, then Friedman became the man.

One day we'll have a new man. or woman, or alien.

Keynes was one of the Bloomsbury group and lots of them stayed at his house. I love the idea of the world leading economist, cutting deals worth tens of billions at todays money and returning home to find the less sucessful members of the group of arty bed-hoppers had been at his drinks cabnet again while he was away.

 

[WillJ]

So, he's not really in the discussion anymore. Economics moved forward.

Professional economists don't discuss Smith much anymore, but general social scientists, humanities scholars, and intellectuals at large do. Much like Karl Marx.

Many (maybe most) of these people, though, have never actually taken the time to read anything that Smith himself wrote (not The Wealth of Nations, and certainly not The Theory of Moral Sentiments), and instead they base their opinions only on the commonly held caricature of Adam Smith: the uber-libertarian ideologue. Again, a comparison can be drawn with Karl Marx. I think this is what Murky is trying to say.

Murky, as for whether Adam Smith was "right or was he totally off base," as Perf said, that is an unfair question. It is also, of course, way too complicated of a question to answer in just a couple posts. To get any sort of worthwhile response you'd need to make the question more specific or concrete.