Adam Smith is often called the father of capitalism. It is certainly true that Smith saw the good in a system of what he called “natural liberty,” where people were free to dispose of their resources and skills as they see fit in a market system. But a certain popular caricature of capitalism might lead one to think that Smith was something he was not. In fact, Smith recognized the benefits of commercial society primarily in its tendency to raise the position of the least well off, the “labouring poor,” whose wages and standard of living increase in a thriving,
