Qua scholar, I view myself as part of a wider trend in scholarship on Adam Smith that emphasizes the political ambitions for (1776) Wealth of Nations. I think more than most scholars I have emphasized in my recent work, especially after my 2017 book, that Smith has a theory of governance and an art of government explicitly inscribed in the Wealth of Nations. In many ways this is a recovery of the early reception of Smith by Bentham and Constant (and others).
