Member of Parliament Jesse Norman, one of the global leading lights on issues of corporate governance and economic policy, has a new book coming out next month about Adam Smith, and it was excerpted in the Wall Street Journal.

What matters for [Adam] Smith isn’t the rhetoric of “free markets” but the reality of effective competition. It is competition that creates economic value and keeps markets honest. But Smith believed that government intervention doesn’t always undermine effective competition. On the contrary: Government can create red tape, but it can also bust trusts and level playing fields. Unfortunately, people today tend to hear only the first half of this message.

Source: What Adam Smith Knew About Trade Wars – WSJ

We also recommend this “interview” with Adam Smith about tariffs by Warren Platts. The “answers” are all quotations from Book IV, Chapter 2, and Book V, Chapter 2, Article 4 of The Wealth of Nations. It is remarkably timely.