“He wanted the gov’t out of the market place totally. He wouldn’t even have any idea of classical liberalism other than to denounce it.”
Classical liberalism is a retroactive categorization, it didn’t exist in Smith’s time. We classify him and other like him, such as Hobbes, or Jefferson as “classical” liberals to distinguish them from the increasingly socialist left that sprang up later.
He would be better classified as a modern conservative and Friedman-ist.