An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1 - Softcover

Smith, Adam

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865970068 ISBN 13: 9780865970069

Publisher: Liberty Fund, 1982

Synopsis

First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith's Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.

Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations' supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation's welath should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity in turn requires voluntary exchange of goods in a peaceful, well-ordered market. How to establish and maintain such markets? For Smith the answer lay in man's social instincts, which government may encourage by upholding social standards of decency, honesty, and virtue, but which government undermines when it unduly interferes with the intrinsically private functions of production and exchange.

About this title

About the Author:

Adam Smith was born in a small village in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1723. He entered the University of Glasgow at age fourteen, and later attended Balliol College at Oxford. After lecturing for a period, he held several teaching positions at Glasgow University. His greatest achievement was writing The Wealth of Nations (1776), a five-book series that sought to expose the true causes of prosperity, and installed him as the father of contemporary economic thought. He died in Edinburgh on July 19, 1790.

About this edition

• Publisher: Liberty Fund
• Publication date: 1982
• ISBN 10: 0865970068
• ISBN 13: 9780865970069
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 550
• Editor: Campbell R. H.