<story><title>The Real Adam Smith</title><url>https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-smith-actually-believed</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>nwah1</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m surprised it didn&amp;#x27;t mention an obvious difference from modern conceptions of the free market: he thought landownership was a monopoly privilege that could be taxed without harm, so long as you are taxing only the land rent itself, not the improvements.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Ground-rents are a still more proper subject of taxation than the rent of houses. A tax upon ground-rents would not raise the rents of houses. It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground-rent, who acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can be got for the use of his ground.&amp;quot; - Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter II</text></comment>
<story><title>The Real Adam Smith</title><url>https://aeon.co/essays/we-should-look-closely-at-what-adam-smith-actually-believed</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>metakermit</author><text>Nice article – gives a bit more background on Smith&amp;#x27;s ideas and why it&amp;#x27;s wrong to flag him as an absolute free market advocate.&lt;p&gt;TL;DR – The invisible hand doesn&amp;#x27;t symbolise the problem of state intervention, but of state capture (i.e. merchant elites lobbying governments to protect their monopolies). On the other hand, merchant elites are a &amp;quot;necessary evil&amp;quot; and the art of good governance is balancing over- and under-regulating them.</text></comment>