Adam Smith Was a Philosopher, and 'Father of Modern Capitalism' Is a Misleading Label
The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy calls the 'father of modern capitalism' description accurate to some extent but overly simplistic and dangerously misleading. The Wealth of Nations is not a book on economics; its subject is 'political economy,' a much more expansive mixture of philosophy, political science, history, economics, anthropology, and sociology.
Smith was not an economist; he was a philosopher. His first book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, sought to describe the natural principles that govern morality and the ways human beings come to know them.
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The label matters because it turns a philosopher into a mascot for capitalism.
The impact is real, though: very few individual books have had as much impact as The Wealth of Nations. That makes him a philosopher who wrote a landmark, not a one-dimensional economist.