Adam Smith’s Warning About Wealth, Fame, and Status (with Ross Levine) (opens in new tab)

Adam Smith. Source: Muir family, Scottish National Museum. What can Adam Smith teach us today? In this conversation between Ross Levine of Stanford’s Hoover Institution and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts, Smith emerges as a penetrating psychologist who understood that our deepest hunger isn’t for wealth but for respect–and that this hunger, left unexamined, leads individuals and societies alike into serious trouble. The discussion moves from the personal (why do highly successful people keep grindin...