Was Adam Smith opposed to all government regulation of the economy?

Answer 1

Adam Smith didn't condemn government regulation. That's a myth often promoted vociferously by the right and believed by everyone else because they haven't read Smith. Corporate libertarians promote the myth, too, resting in large part on neoclassical economics, whose adherents took from Smith the property rights portions of The Wealth of Nations that appealed to them and dumped the rest, just as Karl Marx did with labor at the cost of property rights.

Yes, Smith proposed that an "invisible hand" of the market would more efficiently guide the marketplace. But he knew there's no efficiency and benefit in a land of anarchy and bandits. Smith read Rousseau and appeared to accept elements of The Social Contract. He also witnessed the rapacious conduct of the British East India Company and was well aware of divisions created by wealth and social class.

Sometimes, he suggested, regulation creates a playing field upon which the market can operate most efficiently; e.g., The Wealth of Nations devotes roughly 100 pages to banking regulation.

Smith certainly never advocated that government should never intervene in the economy. I'm not at all sure he couldn't have found some common ground with Keynes.

Answer 2

No, despite what many people say he is not opposed to all government regulation of the economy. He believed government has the duty of protection of citizins, justice, and the education of society.