How should policy makers think about human behaviour?

This Economics Observatory piece looks at Adam Smith’s warnings about policymakers who treat society like a chessboard, assuming people will act according to their plans. It argues that Smith was more nuanced than the free-market label often attached to him and that his main lesson was humility in policymaking: individuals and organisations will follow their own “principles of motion,” often producing unintended consequences. The article uses Liz Truss’s mini-budget as a modern example of what happens when leaders ignore this.

This would work well in lessons on behavioural economics or government intervention and failure especially for discussing unintended consequences, the limits of state action, and different views of Adam Smith beyond the textbook caricature.