Society means markets but also morals: what is left unsaid of Adam Smith
by Massimo Amato e Michele Bee
Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is often seen as the founding text of modern liberal economics, centered on self-interest and markets. Yet this reading oversimplifies his thought. Smith also emphasized sympathy, sociability, speech, and moral judgment as foundations of exchange. Far from celebrating isolated egoism, he saw markets as forms of cooperation. Revisiting Smith today means recovering a richer thinker, critical of domination and attentive to the fragile bonds that hold society together.