Plundering the liberal philosophical tradition? The use or abuse of Adam Smith in Parliament, 1919-2023

The contemporary relevance of Adam Smith is evidenced by continued reference to his name, and his two major works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations. This paper employs computational analysis to identify over 700 mentions of Adam Smith and his works in postWorld War 1 House of Commons debates. We highlight mentions in speeches over the decades and how the tone and substances of them changes. We find some evidence of appreciation among parliamentarians of all political persuasions for Smith’s complex ideas, but the majority of mentions to be “ornamental,” mentioned in passing to support pre-existing political and policy arguments rather than an “argumentative” discussion of his complex ideas. This trend increases in the 1970s as he is “adopted” by key personnel in Thatcher’s Government and with the rise of the Adam Smith Institute. This paper constitutes a first attempt to chart Smith’s use in parliaments of the 20th and 21st centuries and builds on Willis’ (1979: 506) idea that studying parliamentary debates are an ideal way to understand how, at best, policy ideas, germinate and disseminate over time, or, at worst, how “complex ideas became slogans.”