Adam Smith vs. Ayn Rand on Justifying the Free Society

This comparison of Rand and Smith was originally given as a presentation at Clemson University; this is a transcript.

Asking whether one prefers Adam Smith’s or Ayn Rand’s defense of the free society is a bit like asking which of your parents you love the most. You love them both! Maybe you do have a favorite, but you hate to admit it, let alone say it publicly.

Both Smith and Rand supported free markets, free trade, and government limited to protecting private property. In Rand’s case, the protection of private property was absolute, based on her conception of inviolable natural rights. In Smith’s case, the protection of private property was a robust default that arose from his empirical observation that those societies that protected private property fared best. For Smith, however, private property protections could be overridden in some specific cases. It turns out that there are not many such cases (more on this in a moment), but Smith, unlike Rand, was willing to entertain the possibility that there could be such.

But let me focus instead on four specific substantive issues on which Smith and Rand differ:

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Adam Smith vs. Ayn Rand on Justifying the Free Society

Adam Smith vs. Ayn Rand on Justifying the Free Society

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