For a brilliant linguist, he know little of economics. This is true, but he doesn't claim to know much about economics. He pretty explicitly doesn't care about

For a brilliant linguist, he know little of economics. This is true, but he doesn't claim to know much about economics. He pretty explicitly doesn't care about economics. He's the De Morgan dual of right-wingers who care only about productivity growth and don't care at all about distribution issues. Given that, everything he says about the popular (mis-)understanding of Adam Smith is true. EDIT: take for example this hacker news thread ( http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489024 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=489024 ) where: 1. a guy posits Adam Smith's labor theory of value 2. gets told he should read Adam Smith to correct his mistaken ideas 3. quotes Adam Smith to back up his previous statement 4. gets told he's misinterpreting something It's crazy really.