The Adam Smith I have in mind is the one illuminatingly reconstructed by Istvan Hont and Michael Ignatieff (Hont and Ignatieff 1983: 1-44). This is the Smith who argued that if one were to go over to an economy of high wages and a high division of labour, one would not only generate more wealth; one would also insure the poor against the capricious charity of the rich; one would replace an unpredictable provision by persons of quality with a predictable if minimal quantity; one would replace trust, which was not self-reinforcing, with a mutual interest in the results of the pursuit of self-interest, which would be.

XREF: Connects to the author's broader engagement with Smith's thought and the Hont-Ignatieff reconstruction.

Diego Gambetta, Trust - Making and Breaking…, loc. 1541