Adam Smith | |||||||
"If a nation could not prosper without the enjoyment of perfect liberty and perfect justice, there is not in the world a nation which could ever have prospered." The Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter IX "It is the highest impertinence and presumption… in kings and ministers, to pretend to watch over the economy of private people, and to restrain their expense… They are themselves always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society. Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the state, that of their subjects never will." The Wealth of Nations, Book II, Chapter III "Public services are never better performed than when their reward comes in consequence of their being performed, and is proportioned to the diligence employed in performing them." The Wealth of Nations Biography A famous Scottish philosopher and political economist, Adam Smith had a significant influence on economic and political thought. Smith began college at the young age of fifteen, studying moral philosophy at Glasgow University, and on to Balliol College in Oxford, England. Soon after he withdrew from Balliol and began speaking in Edinburgh on rhetoric and other subjects, and by his middle twenty’s began speaking of the simplicity of natural liberty, which he was to later expound on in Wealth of Nations, his most influential book. In his late twenties Adam Smith took a position as professor at Glasgow University, first in logic and later in moral philosophy. It was here that Smith wrote his Theory of Moral Sentiments, where he spoke of sympathy as a common human motive. After this he began to focus more on political economy and drafted his first version of Wealth of Nations. Soon after he resigned his post as teacher to be personal tutor to the duke of Buccleuch, which gave him the opportunity to travel France and meet such figures as Francois Quesnay, whose work he much admired. After returning home he devoted much time to writing his Wealth of Nations, and was soon given the desirable position of commissioner of customs in Scotland. Soon after he died, whereon it was revealed that he devoted significant amounts of his income to secret charitable acts throughout his life. His magnum opus, Wealth of Nations, perhaps the first book on political economy, championed the ideas of free enterprise and free trade. It is still an influential work in the field today. Related Links The Theory of the Moral Sentiments (online text) Resources by Adam Smith The Theory of Moral Sentiments |
