International Adam Smith Society & The World in 1776/2026
Date: 17-20th June 2026
Location: University of Glasgow, Scotland
The World in 1776/2026: The Wealth of Nations at 250
The Wealth of Nations is one of the most influential, yet misunderstood, books in human history. It is known today mostly as a work of economics, when it was much more. Adam Smith’s analysis of the new form of freedom that was emerging during the Enlightenment has shaped the way we think about morality and politics, as well as the economy. It was written against the backdrop of a revolutionary age, in which the emergence of empires transformed the global economy and new Enlightenment ideas sowed the seeds of representative government. Writing on the eve of the American Revolution, Smith used his expertise in political economy to argue against the imperial policies of the time, including slavery, as inconsistent with Enlightenment values. He critiqued the power of large corporations and accused them of corrupting the British government and undermining the free market.
The debates Smith engaged are still with us: How should we regulate business? How can we protect workers from exploitation? How can we address inequality? What economic and political relations should countries have with one another? In this workshop we will use Smith’s answers to these questions as a springboard to generate new answers for our time.
The World in 1776: The Wealth of Empires
This panel will cover Smith’s radical critique of the Atlantic slave trade, the East India Company, and British imperialism in India and Africa; and the way Smith’s ideas fit into Enlightenment debates on empire; and the relevance of Smith’s critique for contemporary debates on the legacies of slavery and empire.
The World in 1776: The Age of Revolutions
This panel will cover Smith’s analysis of the politics and economics of British rule in the American colonies, and situate his prescient critique on the eve of the American Revolution at the midpoint of a revolutionary century that saw uprisings from France to Haiti to Venezuela.
The World in 2026 Monopolists and Robber Barons
This will cover Smith’s critique of corporations and their role in both state capture and the oppression of workers, but from a contemporary perspective, considering what Smith’s ideas contribute to our understanding of the power of Amazon or Exxon Mobil, or the conditions of workers in global supply chains.
The World in 2026: Commerce and Justice
This panel will examine Smith as a moral theorist, drawing on his account of sympathy (empathy), and the economic as a relational and social domain to comment on contemporary issues like wealth inequality, generational inequality, climate change and climate justice.
Wednesday
Evening - Welcome Reception Fergusson Room.
Thursday
0900-1030
BA Plenary 1: Empires and Revolutions (ARC ABC)
Chair:
Glory Liu – Title to come, but topic will be Smith and the American Revolution
Sandra Peart - Smith on Independence: from Slavery to Sovereignty
Spyridon Tegos - “Adam Smith on Political Misnomers: The Cases of Regimes that conceal other Regimes, Ancient and Modern”
1030-1100 Break (ARC Atrium)
1100-1230
Panels 1
BA Panel 1. The World in 1776: The Wealth of Empires (ARC A)
Chair:
Hiroki Ueno ‘Adam Smith and the Imperial Enlightenment: Tory Advocacy of American Independence, New British History, and Pan-European Political Economy in the Wealth of Nations’
Ana Paula Londe Silva ‘Adam Smith’s engagement with the public debate on imperial political economy: lessons from his library’
Mark Rathbone ‘Between Silence and Agency: Africa in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations’
Smith in France and Switzerland (ARC BC)
Chair:
Philippe Massot-Bordenave ‘The Wealth of Nations, a travelogue, The Wealth of Nations, a window on the world’
Karen Horn ‘Adam Smith Stopped at Geneva: the Nature and Causes of his References to Switzerland’
F.E Guerra-Pujol and Alain Alcouffe ‘Adam Smith’s Encounters in Geneva (1765–1766): The Duchesse d’Enville, Enlightenment Sociability, and a Republican Laboratory’
Sympathy, Exchange, and Cooperation (ASB 487)
Chair:
Colette Lappin ‘The Overlooked Role of Sympathy in the Wealth of Nations’
Vivienne Brown ‘Learning from Adam Smith in 2026: the case of ‘cooperation’?’
Leonidas Montes ‘Adam Smith’s foundational character of exchange’
Political Thought (ASB582)
Chair:
Yuchen Sun ‘What is Commercial Society? Adam Smith, J. G. A. Pocock, and Istvan Hont Revisited’
Zack Rauwald and Yiftah Elazar ‘Barbarism and its civilisation in the thought of Adam Smith’
Alejandra M. Salinas ‘Readings of Smith by Contemporary Political Philosophers: Adrian Vermeule’
1230-1400
Lunch (ARC Atrium)
1300-1400 THETS Meeting TBC (ASB)
1300-1400 CSSP Meeting TBC (ASB)
1300-1400 IASS Board TBC
1400-1530
BA Plenary 2 – Robber Barons (ARC ABC)
Chair:
Erin Lockwood - “Exorbitant profits, expensive luxury, and subservient interests: how The Wealth of Nations clarifies the structural power of contemporary big tech”
Erik Peinert – Title to come but topic will be Smith and anti-monopoly regulation
1530-1600 Break
1600-1730
Panels 2
BA Panel 2. The World in 1776: The Age of Revolutions (ASB 489)
Chair:
Mark Skousen ‘Benjamin Franklin: Adam Smith's Invisible Hand?’
Daniel B. Klein and Michaela Loughran ‘Adam Smith's hopes for a liberal America’
Yufei Zhao ‘Adam Smith on Empire, Colonialism, and the Sympathy Theory of Representation’
Feudalism and Agriculture (ASB 582)
Chair:
Ivan Prates Sternick ‘Adam Smith and James Steuart on agricultural improvement in the Scottish Highlands’
Fabrizio Simon ‘Adam Smith and the Enlightenment Debate on Feudalism’
Jou Ishii ‘Agrarian system in classical political economy and Adam Smith’
The Reception of the Wealth of Nations (ASB 587)
Chair:
Lotte List ‘Smith in the Sattelzeit: history and progress’
Haoming Liu ‘After Adam Smith: the Southern Migration of Scottish Political Economy’
Naoki FUJIMOTO ‘Adam Smith in Early Nineteenth-Century Ireland: William Thompson’s Smithian Critique of Mercantilism and Empire’
Morality and Commercial Society (ASB 487)
Chair:
John McHugh ‘Smith’s Political Concerns about the Division of Labor’
John Alcorn ‘Adam Smith on Morality-and-Markets in Retrospect’
Robert Garnett ‘Just Happiness’
Friday
0900-1030
BA Plenary 3 – Commerce and Justice (ARC BC)
Chair:
Jim Otteson "The Dignity of the 'Lowest Ranks of the People': Adam Smith on Respect and Moral Equality."
Eoin McLaughlin ‘Towards an Inclusive Wealth of Nations’
1030-1100 Break (ARC Atrium)
1100-1230
Panels 3
BA 3. The World in 2026 Monopolists and Robber Barons (ARC B)
Chair:
Katarzyna Szarzec and Paweł Marszałek ‘Should the power of Big Techs be limited? A Smithian perspective’
Spencer Pack ‘Adam Smith on 21st Century Attempts to Create New Forms of Money: Bitcoin and other Cryptocurrencies’
Stefan Fritsch ‘Adam Smith and Corporate Power in the Era of Digital Feudalism’
Smith’s Legacy (ARC C)
Chair:
Gabriel F. Benzecry and Daniel J. Smith ‘Quantifying Adam Smith's Legacy: Coverage in Economic Thought Textbooks’
Douglas E. Stevens ‘The Chicago School’s Distorted View of The Wealth of Nations: Causes, Effects, and Future Opportunities for Corporate Governance’
Charles Kirby, Steve Medema, Steve Pickering, Graeme Roy, Thomas Scotto, Shambhavi Sinha ‘Smith Goes to Washington: Using LLMs to Decode His Legacy in American Legislative Debate’
Feudalism and Mercantilism (ARC 225)
Chair:
Dan Clinkman ‘What is the Wealth of Nations? Feudalism, Mercantilism and Adam Smith’s Revolutionary Economics’
Kevin Forbes ‘Rethinking Adam Smith’s Views on Collusion’
Daniel B Klein and Jacob R. Hall ‘Why Lords Went for Luxuries: A Riff on Adam Smith’
Justice (ASB 141 A)
Chair:
Otto Lehto ‘The Evolutionary Grammar of Liberty: Smith’s Radicalisation of Narrow Humean Justice’
Robin Paul Malloy ‘Smithian Insights on the Relationship Among Justice, Property, and Markets’
Thiago Vargas ‘Virtue, Sovereignty, and the Spirit of Commerce in Adam Smith’
1230-1400 Lunch (ARC Atrium)
1300-1400 IASS Meeting (ARC A)
1400-1530
Panels 4
BA 4. The World in 2026: Commerce and Justice (ARC B)
Chair:
Kristen Collins ‘A Smithian Approach to Recognition, Representation, and Masculinity’
John Kristof and Nathanael Snow ‘School Choice and the Development of Civic Virtue: Insight from Adam Smith’
Leo Steeds ‘Interpreting Adam Smith's "natural liberty" in the Anthropocene’
Smith in Scotland (ARC C)
Chair:
Ryan P. Hanley ‘The Shared Vision of the Glasgow Professors: Rethinking Smith’s Debts to Hutcheson’
Ewan McCall TBC on Smith’s legal papers
Gordon Povey 'Adam Smith, the man and some myths’.
The Global Impact of the Wealth of Nations (ARC 225)
Chair:
Paul Tonks ‘Adam Smith and Enlightenment in Korea: Exploring the Global Impact of Scottish Thought’
Alfredo Félix Blanco ‘The Influence of Adam Smith on Argentine Liberal Thinkers in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century’
Tianqi Su, Yuan Liu, and Pingyu Shao ‘From Guojia (State) to Guomin (People): The Conceptual Transformations of “Wealth” in Chinese Translations of Adam Smith’
Smith’s Impact on Later Thinkers (ASB 141B)
Chair:
Julio Elias and Walter Castro ‘Adam Smith, Experimental Innovator, through the Lenses of Conceptual Innovators’
Maxime Desmarais-Tremblay ‘On the history of public goods, from Adam Smith to Theodore Groves’
GAO Chen-xi ‘From Classical Service to Modern 'Services': The Double Misreading of Adam Smith’
Equality and Inequality (ARC 237A)
Chair:
Mariam Ahmed Mohamed Mansour ‘Sympathy, Self-Interest, and Inequality: Adam Smith’s Moral Psychology of Economic Judgment’
Kamal Tasiu ‘From Invisible Hands to Corporate Giants: Adam Smith on Inequality Then and Now’
Jimena Hurtado ‘From Admiration to Industry: The Aesthetic Economy of Adam Smith’
Applying Smith to the Contemporary (ASB 404)
Chair:
Omar Bin Bayah ‘The Wealth of Nations in a Changing World (1776–2026): From Pins to Parameters’
Olena Nesterenko ‘Adam Smith's Classic Ideas in Response to Modern Challenges’
Constantine E. Passaris ‘Technological change and the Wealth of Nations: An economic journey from the industrial revolution to artificial intelligence’
1530-1600 Break (ARC Atrium)
1600-1730
Panels 5
BA Workshop Session (ARC 225)
Jurisprudence (ASB 141A)
Chair:
Toshiaki Ota ‘‘Faction’ and ‘Public Spirit’ in Adam Smith within the Tradition of Scottish Natural Jurisprudence’
Chapin Cimino ‘Adam Smith & Modern (Virtue) Jurisprudence: Liability or Strength?’
Mario J. Rizzo ‘ADAM SMITH, ECLECTIC PHILOSOPHER OF LAW?’
WN in Context (ASB 141B)
Chair:
Richard van den Berg ‘Adam Smith and the machinery debates of his time’
Ronald MacDonald ‘After Egoism: The Wealth of Nations in its Theo-Ethical Context’
Prof. Hiroshi KAWAMATA Adam Smith and his Wealth of Nations
Religion (ASB 588)
Chair:
Brendan Long ‘A SUMMARY OF THE CURRENT DEBATE ON SMITH’S THEISM’
María Alejandra Carrasco ‘Adam Smith’s WN and the (non-religious) principles of the Social Doctrine of the Church’
Gordon Graham ‘Religious Liberty: a Smithian Perspective’
Smith’s Method (ARC 237A)
Chair:
Tamas Demeter ‘Smith’s Philosophical Chemistry’
Michele Bee ‘Adam Smith’s Variety’
Kyosuke MISAWA ‘Adam Smith on Gravity’
Erik Matson ‘Minding the Gaps: Reality, Theory, and policy in Adam Smith’
Smith’s Influences (ASB 404)
Chair:
Alvaro Perpere ‘Francisco Sanchez de Brozas and Adam Smith Considerations Concerning the First Formation on Languages. Rational Grammar and Conjectural History’
Giovanni Gellera ‘John Mair on Usury, Trade and Wealth’
Constantinos Repapis ‘Self-interest and Trade: Sir James Steuart, Josiah Tucker, Adam Smith and the ontology of transition’
Saturday
0900-1030
Panels 6
Markets (JMS 429)
Chair:
Kimberlee Josephson ‘Why Sustainable Food Access Depends on Market Coordination’
Çınla Akdere ‘Imagination and Its Impact on the Labor Market : A Smithian interpretation of adolescents’ future-oriented cognitions’
Sigve Tjøtta ‘Morality in Market and Gift Exchange Societies’
Moral Philosophy (JMS 530)
Chair:
Keith Hankins and Kirun Sankaran ‘Scaling the Impartial Spectator’
Thaís Alves Costa and Evandro Barbosa ‘The Impartial Spectator Under Strain: Moral Challenges in Smith’s Commercial Society’
Jason S. Canon ‘On Smith’s Critical Sentimentalism’
Hiroyuki Ota ‘Adam Smith and the idea of Moral Good’
Reading the Wealth of Nations (JMS 629)
Chair:
Jerome Lange ‘Recovering the Unifying Demographic Dimension of the Wealth of Nations’
Roni Hirsch ‘The Corruption of Nature and the Government of Crisis in 19th Century Political Economy’
F. E. Guerra Pujol and Salim Rashid ‘Beyond Das Adam Smith Problem’
Trade (JMS 630)
Chair:
Matthias Klaes ‘Adam Smith, Free Trade and the Origin of Customs Unions’
De-Xing Guan ‘Adam Smith, Acquired Advantage, and International Trade’
Eyüp Özveren and Mustafa Erdem Sakinç ‘Adam Smith on the Business Enterprise: The Wealth of Nations Revisited’
1030-1100 Break (JMS Atrium)
1100-1230
Panels 7
Translating the Wealth of Nations (JMS 429)
Chair:
Luiz Felipe Bruzzi Curi and Alexandre Mendes Cunha ‘From the Luso-Brazilian Empire to Germany: Karl Murhard as a Smithian translator in the early 19th century’
Qing Guo, Huilin Chen, Tianqi Su ‘Travelers and Transmission: The Translation and Sinicization of The Wealth of Nations in Late Qing China’
Hongtao He ‘The Spread of The Wealth of Nations in Modern China and Its influence on “Chinese Economics” ‘
Social Recognition (JMS 530)
Chair:
Huahui Zhu ‘Humanity as a Political Virtue: Reconsidering Smith’s Legacy of Moderation’
Robert Fudge ‘Adam Smith: Champion of Dignity’
Christel Fricke ‘Justice, Solidarity, and the Limits of Accountability: Adam Smith’s Response to Joseph Butler’
Politics (JMS 629)
Chair:
Shal Marriott ‘Drawing Together and Growing Apart: A Smithian View on Affective Polarization’
John Thrasher ‘Of Pigs and Porters: The Wealth of Nations as Plato’s Republic Inverted’
Barry Weingast ‘A Neglected Element of Adam Smith’s Theory of the State: Military Competition, Evolutionary Survival, and State Capacity.
Money (JMS 630)
Chair:
Paweł Marszał ‘Money as a Commodity, again? The Relevance of Adam Smith's Monetary Theories in the Context of Digital Money’
Mauricio C. Coutinho ‘Smith on circulation’
Carmen Ocampo-Salazar and Danny García ‘The Cooperative Side of Adam Smith: A Case Study in 21st-Century Banking’
1230 End
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