Small world, economics

TL;DR -- For the 250th and the 400th, we are doing "small world" posts which will look at events on both sides of the English pond. Adam Smith, of Scotland, is almost as popular as Karl Marx. Smith was born 250 years ago and is considered the saint of a market economy; though, he wrote on ethics and morals, as well. The 2025 holiday issue of The Economist featured him in one of their articles.

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This is the third series. So far, we have looked at science and literature. This post picks up the thread of economics. This time, again, the holiday issue of The Economist of 2025 is the source. Here is a quote from an article on Adam Smith: 

Marx inspired socialist revolutions across the world; Smith inspired liberal ones, including the turn to free-market economics in America and Britain in the 1980s.

A famous metaphor is attributed to Smith, namely the "invisible hand", which has been used to describe market activity on the one hand and to depict "Divine Providence" on the other. The latter usage was prior to the former. 

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Remarks: Modified: 01/17/2026

01/17/2026 --