If the first two pillars we have highlighted represent more on the side of theories, then the third pillar we shall come to now is more about the practices.

And we think herein lies one of the main importance of the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith. Among all the intellectual structures we have come across, we have come to the view the Intellectual structure of Adam Smith provides the most clear, systematic, inspring and actionable foundation upon which we can find ways to put almost all the others into places; and to build a crucial link between the civilization of the East and the West.

Meanwhile, famous and influential as the name of Adam Smith and the “Wealth of Nations” as they have been; and despite their clear impact on human societies over the last over 250 years, we believe that the world generally has understood probably no more than 50% of the Wealth of Nations; and lesser still of The Theory of Moral Sentiments which Adam Smith seems to have always thought to be an even more important work. And we always believe that The Wealth of Nations should really be seen as the sequel to the Theory of Moral Sentiments and that these two masterpieces should really be read and understood as an integrated whole.  

This is before we take into account Adam Smith’s unfinished works , which he has asked his friends to get them all burnt shortly before his death, and for which we can only be able to get a glimpse of through the records and notes of his friends, students and his own deeds.  

Still, as far as we can discern, we think Adam Smith has some unspoken and unfulfilled visions on what is attainable for the kind of Free Market Commercial Society ( he has also called it The System of Natural Liberty) he has in mind.

Based on our understanding of the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith, we think Adam Smith is of the view that while human beings is at once a self-interest oriented specie but at the same time, is also a social creature capable of “Virtue”.

As such, Adam Smith sees the following as entirely possible and conceivable: that the ”Invisible hand” and “Impartial spectator” in combination with “self-love” and “sympathy” converting the “private interests and passions of men” into a better society for all, with “all ranks in the society” reaching “opulence” but still exhibiting “virtues”, with elements of “prudence” to moderate the individuals’ excesses; elements of “justice” to prevent us harming others; and elements of “benefience” to promote the happiness of others.

And according to Adam Smith, Happiness is consisted of the three following components: Material Provisions; Social Engagement; and the Tranquility that comes from Acting Virtuously.

We believe it is of utmost importance to bear in mind that Adam Smith is a moral philosopher first and foremost and we concur with Jerry Muller that “The Wealth of Nations is the most important ever written about capitalism and its moral amification. It was intended to make men better ; not just better off.”

Herein lies what we see as the unspoken and unfulfilled visions of Adam Smith, and  one major task we set for ourself is to find out how feasible is such visions of Adam Smith in terms of both theories and practices.

And this brings us to the potential role of Hong Kong which is one of the few – or even the only – city in the world which has really tried to consciously model its political economy structure along the lines of the ideas and thoughts of Adam Smith.

More importantly, despite its very modest population base and geographical size, the city , of Hong Kong, in its course of struggling to survive against the constraint of challenging environment and very limited resources, seemed to have able to achieve quite something during its modest years of existence which may be said that it  seemed to have “Created Some Virtues out of Necessity”, so to speak. We believe that such innovations made by Hong Kong could be of reference value to the wider  of Humanities and could also be seen as an experiment on how the Civilisation of the East and the West may possibly mix and integrate.

Admittedly, Hong Kong has changed in many ways but we believe that quite many legacies of Adam Smith’s ideas and thoughts are still present and alive and in any case, the city’s past is enough to illustrate quite many things which probably worth the attention of the wider portion of the humanities.

In short, we believe that there could be areas where the Hong Kong experience could be replicated or could offer reference value to the rest of the Humanities and more importantly, this Little City could well serve as an important experiment to the Humanities in terms of trying out the unspoken and unfulfilled visions of Adam Smith and in terms of how the Civilisation of the East may meet and integrate with that of the West.

Hence, we would see such Adam Smith dimension as one key aspect where Hong Kong may connect with the rest of the world and indeed this could well constitute the dimension which could make the city important and relevant in terms of how the Chinese civilisation is to adapt to the modern world and integrate into the international community. In this connection, we see Hong Kong being in a position where it could and should connect well with quite many other cities in the world, among which we would see Oxford and London as among the most important. 

Indeed, we envisage that such Adam Smith dimension could allow Hong Kong to potentially play a more important role in many frontier areas of the world, and that would include ESG and Corporate Responsibilities; the nature of the Capital Market; the building of a green and sustainable global economy; the mobilisation of Charity Capital in the world ; the preservation and revitalisation of heritage brands and assets in Hong Kong and the rest of the world etc.　These shall constitute some of the areas we shall seek to focus on.