> How is Wealth of Nations surprising for a modern reader?

Most people haven't read it, and tend to only reference things like "invisible hand", and skim/skip over a lot of Smith's 'moralizing'. His book before Wealth was after all The Theory of Moral Sentiments:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Theory_of_Moral_Sentiments

If you don't want to read Ye Olde English, perhaps see Glory Liu's book Adam Smith’s America:

> Drawing on a trove of illuminating archival materials, Liu tells the story of how an unassuming Scottish philosopher captured the American imagination and played a leading role in shaping American economic and political ideas. She shows how Smith became known as the father of political economy in the nineteenth century and was firmly associated with free trade, and how, in the aftermath of the Great Depression, the Chicago School of Economics transformed him into the preeminent theorist of self-interest and the miracle of free markets. Liu explores how a new generation of political theorists and public intellectuals has sought to recover Smith’s original intentions and restore his reputation as a moral philosopher.

* https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60015569-adam-smith-s-am...

Interview:

* https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbQjDpUfJrs

She goes into the "Adam Smith Problem"; one paper on it:

> Adam Smith is best known for his economic theories that extoll the free market and individual self-interest. These ideas are the focus of Smith's second book, The Wealth of Nations. However, Smith also made large contributions to the fields of ethics and moral philosophy. Nearly 20 years prior to the publication of The Wealth of Nations, Smith first became a renowned moral philosopher when he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith outlines the nature of morality. This morality, for Smith, places an emphasis upon sympathy and compassion, which are felt by imagining the plight of others through the impartial spectator. This impartial spectator is a mode of thinking that allows for one to adjudge the actions of others in relation to society's general attitudes toward that said action. Despite Smith's consummate rumination in both books, there seems to be a disconnect between Smith's moral philosophy, found within The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and his economic philosophy, found within The Wealth of Nations. How can Smith eulogize compassion and fellow feeling in one writing, while also holding that self-interest is necessary for the advancement of society in another? This disconnect is known as the Adam Smith Problem. The purpose of this project is to acknowledge the existence of The Adam Smith Problem by seeing it not as an attempt to undermine Smith's intellectual continuity, but as a challenge to reconcile the self-interested nature of humanity with higher moral standards accomplished through compassion. This reconciliation is accomplished through the notion of a liberal society in which an individual is both free to do anything that does not harm another and can expect society to maintain a higher set of moral standards through a justice system. Both wealth proliferation through self-interest and the upholding of higher values through compassion are predicates of this liberal society: the culmination of Smith's philosophy.

* https://quod.lib.umich.edu/u/umurj/16481002.0014.007/--adam-...