The wealth of nations
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| The wealth of nations |
From introduction:
Adam Smith, the greatest of political economists, was born in 1723 at Kirkcaldy in Fifeshire, Scotland. He was sent in 1787 to the University of Glasgow, and three years later to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained for seven years. In 1748 he gave lectures at Edinburgh on rhetoric and belles-lettres, and the intimate friendship that he here formed with David Hume must have powerfully influenced the formation of his opinions.
In 1751 he was elected Professor of Logic in Glasgow, and in the following year was transferred to the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the same University, a position which he occupied for nearly twelve years. In 1759 he brought out his
"Theory of Moral Sentiments." Subsequently, he made a prolonged sojourn in France, where he lived in the society of Quesnay, Turgot, D'Alembert, and Helvetius. There is reason to believe that he began at Toulouse the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," a work upon which he was employed for many years.
This remarkable book appeared in 1776, and must still be regarded as the greatest exist- ing essay in the field of political economy, the only at- tempt to replace it, that of John Stuart Mill, having, on the whole, miscarried, notwithstanding its partial usefulness. Buckle pronounced it "the most important book ever written."
Political Economy is essentially a modern department of learning. It may be defined as the science which treats the production, distribution, and exchange of commodities. I
n the ancient world, we have only fitful adumbrations of the conception of such a science.
In the Middle Ages proper, as might naturally be expected, no advance is made. Indeed, the idea itself is even lost. Production was almost exclusively for use, and trade or exchange was so little developed that the economic aspect of things never presented itself distinctively.
Author: Adam Smith
Publication Date: 1902
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