ABSTRACT
Jim Otteson’s new book is a thoughtful and important contribution to the current debate over the interpretation and legacy of Adam Smith. He rightfully reminds us of the importance in Smith’s moral and economic philosophy of spontaneous or, his preferred term, ‘unintended’ order (p. 6). Otteson’s book is distinctive in claiming that for Smith this ‘market model’ is applicable not only, as is usually argued, to economics, but also to the development of languages, morals, and, he suggests but does not claim to prove, perhaps all aspects of human behavior (p. 251).
