Adam Smith died in 1790, a time when the world had little experience with free markets. He was a pioneer in economic thought, but that doesn't automatically mean all of his prognostications about the future are correct.

His prognostications were not necessarily considered by him to be "about the future". Smith believed that most of what he was writing was about things that were true for all time. He may (or may not) have been wrong about that, just as he may have been wrong about any of the specific things he wrote. But he was generally not predicting the future in any real sense.

> Smith believed that most of what he was writing was about things that were true for all time.

Theory is incredible - when it's right, it's right everywhere for all time. I don't know why people disparage it (other than to signal their anti-intellecutallism).

I am a big believer in taking part of someones idea set doesnt mean you need to import their entire idea set.

Adam Smith would be considered a right wing economist today, similar to Milton Friedman, perhaps with more support for certain government functions such as education. However, even on that issue, given the wildly different level of education available today, its not easy to predict what he would think.

Often quotations from him are taken wildly out of context to support a 'progressive' viewpoint. An example (From David Friedman's blog):

    "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.”

But, if we keep reading:

    It is impossible indeed to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies, much less to render them necessary.

Adam Smith was a proponent of free trade, free markets, and flat taxation (proportional to income). Not very socialist.

(https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/discovering-what-is-tr...)