ABSTRACT
Only by fi rst grasping classical political economy and early liberalism may an understanding of the current state of affairs be developed. Recent work in the history of economic thought has challenged the widespread notion that Adam Smith may be considered the founding father of laissez-faire liberalism (Brown 1997, Hundert 1994, Tribe 1999, Samuels & Medema 2005, Winch 1996). Smith’s views on the proper role of government in a market society have been severely misrepresented, it seems. If the predominant interpretation of Adam Smith has indeed been misguided in this sense-and there is compelling evidence in support of this thesis-is this an isolated occurrence or part of a larger tendency in modern interpretations of classical liberalism? This chapter endeavours to demonstrate that this is indeed the case. With Quentin Skinner (1998) and Philip Pettit (1997), it can be argued that the history of early liberalism has been placed in oblivion, not only in the history of economic thought, but in intellectual history more generally. What has been lost in this oblivion is not just an important part of our intellectual and political history, but also a sensibility to what is implied by current and past notions of liberty, freedom, government, and liberalism.
