"Ever since the time of his early interpreters, beginning with David Hume, Adam Smith's theory of value has been the subject of confusion and misunderstanding - including a controversy which still rages over whether Smith held a labour theory of value, and, if so, whether he held to it...

Montes's interpretations of propriety and of self-command, the master Smithian virtue, led him to place Smith's ethics in the deontology camp with Immanuel Kant, clearly opposed to the utilitarians. This is an issue that is worth pursuing for two reasons. First, the relation between Smith and...