Visit to Panmure House, Edinburgh: Thurday 27 March 2025.

Originally built in 1691 for the Earls of Panmure, the House became the final remaining home of philosopher Adam Smith when in 1778 he arrived there, bringing his mother from Kirkcaldy to live with him and serving as the Government's Commissioner of Customs and Salt in Edinburgh.

During his remaining twelve years of life, he completed the final editions of his master works The Theory of Moral Sentiments and The Wealth of Nations at Panmure House, promulgating his belief that wealth is created by labour and that self-interest spurs people to use their resources to earn money.

Other great luminaries of the age including fellow philosopher Edmund Burke and geologist James Hutton visited Smith regularly to debate and shape the ideas that went on to form the basis of our modern society, and he created a library containing complete works of Voltaire and Shakespeare.

Panmure House later went into a period of decline. It was initially renovated in 1957 by media magnate Lord Thomson of Fleet and presented to the Rev Ronald Selby Wright for use by the Canongate Boys Club. In a later period, it became perceived as at risk of demolition, but in 2008 the Edinburgh Business School and Heriot-Watt University undertook to rescue it, and following a 10-year £5.6M renovation it was formally opened in November 2018.

Today the vision of the Edinburgh Business School is for a world in which businesses and government serve the long-term common good, where policies and public discourse are inclusive, well-reasoned and founded on research. Its mission is to provide world-class 21st-century social and economic debate and research, convening in the name of Adam Smith to effect positive change.

Programmes include: an annual award for research into long-term investment and its relationship with innovation; the Adam Smith Lecture Series convening thinkers, practitioners and Laureates to deliver keynote lectures of global relevance; the Hutton Series promoting open discourse about energy, climate change and resource use and availability; Festival Fringe events which last year featured Simon Evans on Adam Smith; Lights of Caledonia events delivered by or about an inspirational Scot ; and the Smith Schools Series designed to inspire and educate school pupils about Adam Smith's life and times and the global influence of the Scottish Enlightenment.

Panmure House therefore aims to promote an atmosphere of informed debate within the confidence of an equivalent of the Chatham House Rules. Sustainable capitalism may be about navigating a course for socioeconomic success through geopolitical challenges such as Net Zero and those now being posed by the Trump administration's imposition of tariffs. Whereas in recent times economic globalisation was bringing the world together, now a combination of war and US politics seems to be tearing it apart, with Europe sidelined by American rivalry with China - though the disappearance of Trump's demand for control of the Panama Canal from the headlines following the BlackRock acquisition suggests that he may have already got what he wants on that front. On climate change, as Chinese production of carbon declines it may be offset by the surge of India. In terms of global dominance, it is not to be presumed that the US will be the ultimate winner.

Logistics developments may be influenced by changes in customer expectations on quality and by the predominance of small operators, often family firms, making it difficult for change to percolate through the supply chain. 1 in 12 British jobs are in the transport and logistics sector, which in the last thirty years has seen enormous change from a local to a global focus with as yet little evidence that a yearning for nearshoring may yield a significant retreat.

American independence and the industrial revolution were only just happening as Smith wrote, so he was not to see capitalism in its modern form. Nevertheless, he deplored slavery as inefficient and had concerns about inequality, and his vision on the economies of scale remains as relevant today. He can be said to have inaugurated the notion of the supply chain adding value, and as well as being the undisputed Father of Economics can thus lay claim to being the Grandfather of Supply Chain Management.

The Scottish Region thanks Professors Edward Sweeney and Adam Dixon for a memorable evening which provided the atmospheric experience of hearing about the ongoing significance of Adam Smith's views in the very room at which they were formulated nearly two centuries ago.

For further information, see the Panmure House website at www.panmurehouse.org.

Report by John Yellowlees.