Free Thinking

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Intelligent speech, the most insightful journalism, the wittiest comedy, the most fascinating features and the most compelling drama and readings anywhere in UK radio.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with artists and thinkers in debates and interviews.

The ideas shaping our lives today - with leading artists and thinkers in extended interview and debate.

Free Thinking: Adam Smith

Adam Smith

BBC Radio 4 - Free Thinking, Adam Smith

From the East India Company to Silicon Valley: the big ideas in his tercentennial year.

Free markets, self-interest and sympathy: Anne McElvoy looks at the ideas of Adam Smith and what his contemporaries and modern minds made of them

The father of capitalism or a sensitive moral philosopher? Adam Smith has been claimed as the defender of self-interest and advocate of free market economics, but his reputation has undergone a recent reappraisal. With his tercentenary in 2023, Anne McElvoy hears about the unexpected side of Adam Smith and his enduring presence in modern political economy.  

Glory Liu is a Lecturer on Social Studies at Harvard University. Her first book, Adam Smith's America: How a Scottish Philosopher became an Icon of American Capitalism, is a history of the reception of Adam Smith's ideas in America. 

Maha Rafi Atal is a lecturer in Global Economy at the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Glasgow. 

Dafydd Mills Daniel is a lecturer in Divinity at the University of St Andrews who looks at the history of philosophy and religious thought. He is a BBC Radio 3 AHRC New Generation Thinker.

Roos Slegers is Assistant Professor in the School of Humanities and Digital Sciences at Tilburg University. Her research focuses on the intersection of philosophy, literature and economics in the late 18th Century authors.  

Producer: Ruth Watts 

Adam Smith 300 sees events taking place at universities in Scotland  including Adam Smith 300 at the University Glasgow.
Smith, Ferguson, and Witherspoon at 300 runs at St Andrews University from 18th-21st July

Previous Free Thinking episodes exploring economic ideas include an episode about John Rawls's A Theory of Justice (1971) and Mandeville's view of 18th century economics in his Fable of the Bees (1714)

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