Today, Smith’s “posthumous fame” is largely at variance with what he actually wrote about. He did not favor laissez-faire, especially in its one-sided version of the purely self-interested actions of “merchants and manufacturers” (a scurrilous set of one-sided exponents of “laissez-faire,” Smith favored “natural liberty” for all). Smith’s ideas are still not faithfully represented in modern economics. Q: Smith’s work has been continually misrepresented, most often to justify neo-classical economic theory. What would Smith have thought of the work of those who claim to be his intellectual heirs, for example, the Classical Economists of the 1800s, and the Austrian School of the 20th century? A: I am skeptical of classical economists claiming to be his “intellectual heirs.” Even today the “neo-classical” perpetuate the myth of the “invisible hand” and ascribe it to the market.  All markets work using visible prices (and cannot work without them!). What then is the role of an invisible hand?  That even Nobel Prize winners repeat the canard of the “invisible hand” is disappointing, to say the least. The Austrian School likewise promotes the myth of the ‘”invisible hand” which is also disappointing. - http://simplycharly.com/people/adam-smith/read/interviews/bound-by-the-world-order-in-which-he-lived-gavin-kennedy-on-why-adam-smith-was-a-realist-not-an-ideologue