Nicholas Phillipson’s biography of Adam Smith and slavery
Nicholas Phillipson’s new biography of Adam Smith would have deserved all the praise it has received, if slavery had not been such a fundamental contributor to the wealth that Smith, Glasgow, and Scotland enjoyed. Philliipson’s omission of the role of slavery in early capitalism, however, continues the legacy of an economics of dissociation that began with Smith’s The Wealth of Nations. It is time to tell the whole truth, or at least those elements that could actually promote the integrity of economics. See my review of Phillipson’s book, Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life, in the August issue of the Review of Social Economics
