... the individual which emerges from his economic argument in Wealth of Nations and is a generally unsatisfying answer. In attempting to define liberty, Adam Smith is mostly concerned with negative liberty, or freedom from constraint, especially market constraints. According to him, in a free market, as long as they are not fettered by government regulation, actions are guided toward the public good as if by an invisible hand. Furthermore, the economic sphere is the determining section of society. Therefore from his economic model, he derives his argument for the best role of government and asserts that the resultant society will be the best overall for civilization. Since he defines the individual as sovereign (within the laws of justice), and he defines liberty as freedom from constraint, his argument begins with the individual, defining a man's labor as the foundation of all other property. From this it follows that the disposition of one's ...

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