The Hayekian Triangle: The Wealth of Nations at 250

Welcome to our new series, The Hayekian Triangle. This series will feature a range of conversations between our hosts: Virgil Storr, Chris Coyne, and Peter Boettke.

On this episode, the three sit down to mark the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations — and to ask a deceptively simple question: why are we still reading a book written a quarter-millennium ago?

From the invisible hand to the division of labor, Smith's ideas have become so embedded in how we think about markets and society that it's easy to forget just how radical they originally were. Virgil, Chris, and Pete dig into what Smith actually said, why the standard takes on laissez-faire and self-interest so often miss the mark, and what a Scottish moral philosopher writing in 1776 still has to teach us about wealth, poverty, and the institutions that make human flourishing possible.

Whether you're coming to Smith for the first time or returning to him with fresh eyes, this conversation is a reminder that the greatest works in political economy aren't monuments to be admired from a distance — they remain living inputs into the science of today.

**This episode was recorded on April 3, 2026**

Show Notes:

• Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)

• Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Liberty Fund, 1982)

• Kenneth Boulding, "After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith?" (History of Political Economy, 1971)

• Kenneth Boulding, "Economics as a Moral Science" (The American Economic Review, 1969)

• Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (Penguin Press, 2019)

• Raghuram Rajan, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind (Penguin Press, 2019)

• Deirdre McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World; Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (University of Chicago Press, 2006, 2010, 2016)

• Martha Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2019)

• Ludwig von Mises, “Why Read Adam Smith Today?” (FEE, 2015)

• Richard Ebeling, "Celebrating Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations at 250 Years" (Future of Freedom, 2026)

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Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!

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CC Music: Twisterium