ABSTRACT
Adam Smith's name has become synonymous with free market economics; The Wealth of Nations is taken as the definitive account of the benefits of free competitive markets. Yet recent scholarship has challenged this view and given us a richer, more nuanced figure, steeped in the intricacies of enlightenment social and political philosophy. Adam Smith's Discourse both develops this literature and gives it a radical new extension by taking into account recent debates in literary theory.
