SOURCE: A conclusion to The Economics of Adam Smith, University of Toronto Press, 1973, pp. 305–20.

Hollander defends Smith against charges that The Wealth of Nations contains numerous inconsistencies and assesses his contribution to formal and applied classical economics. The critic underscores Smith's responsiveness to changing economic conditions brought about by contemporary technological and sociological developments, particularly as displayed in his theory of the competitive allocation of resources.

Professor Schumpeter in his celebrated critique has written that Adam Smith's function was merely that of co-ordinator whose 'mental stature was up to mastering the unwieldy material that flowed from many sources and to subjecting it, with a strong hand, to the rule of a small number of coherent principles'; there was not 'a single analytic idea, principle, or method that was entirely new in 1776.¹ There is much to be said for viewing the Wealth of Nations as a 'synthesis'; but in...