Adam Smith, who knew how to make an exit, has grown into a misty icon, a hero to libertarians and free-marketeers who like their economics neat, hold the morals. (The real Adam Smith argued for restraints on markets and prized his work on ethics more than his work on economics.) The manuscript Smith asked his friends to spare had nothing to do with either ethics or economics. It was his History of Astronomy, written shortly after he finished graduate school.
