Most employers believed that to get the poor classes to work, their wages had to be low, just enough to keep them from starving. ![]() Increasingly, workers labored for pennies a day in factories and mines. The first cotton-spinning factory had opened only a few years earlier. When Adam Smith published his Wealth of Nations in 1776, Britain was just beginning to enter the Industrial Revolution. "An Obvious and Simple System of Natural Liberty" These two principles eventually would become the hallmarks of modern capitalism. Smith attacked government intervention in the economy and provided a blueprint for free markets and free trade. This massive work of almost 1,000 pages was based on his exhaustive research and personal observations. During this period, he visited London several times and witnessed debates in Parliament on the growing American resistance to British rule.įinally, in March 1776, Smith published An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. The following year, Smith returned home to Scotland to finish his book, a task that took him nine more years. He also became acquainted with leading political figures such as Benjamin Franklin and Edmund Burke (an important British political writer and leader). Smith researched Britain’s credit and debt along with the history of colonization by ancient Rome. Townshend wanted the American colonists to help pay down the war debt through such measures as a tax on tea. This war enabled Britain to seize all of French North America. Townshend had to deal with the huge national debt that resulted from the Seven Years’ War. He worked as a researcher for Charles Townshend, who was then in charge of Britain’s finances. ![]() Quesnay’s innovative idea prompted Smith to begin to write his own book on economics. He believed a nation’s wealth came from its farm produce, which circulated throughout the land, nourishing everyone. Quesnay took issue with the popular belief, known as mercantilism, that a nation’s wealth was its hoard of gold or silver. ![]() Quesnay had devised a system called "Physiocracy," which he believed explained the source of national wealth. Smith also met the leading French economist, Francois Quesnay. Smith traveled to Paris with his student and met Voltaire and other philosophers involved in the French Enlightenment. In 1763, Smith quit his professorship at Glasgow and tutored the stepson of Charles Townshend, who later became Britain’s treasury minister in the years leading up to the American Revolution. He concluded that self-seeking individuals were "led by an invisible hand" that caused them to unintentionally act in ways that still benefited society. He contended, however, that this was not bad. there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.īut Smith also believed that people often acted in their self-interest, especially in economic matters. He pointed out that no matter how selfish a man might be, At the beginning of the book, he stated that all people had the capacity to care about others. His book looked at human nature and ethics. In 1759, Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments. He actively took part in Glasgow debating societies and often argued for free trade. Smith became a professor of philosophy at Glasgow in 1751. After graduating, he attended Oxford in England and studied philosophy. At 14, he entered the University of Glasgow. In 1776, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations, probably the most influential book on market economics ever written.īorn in 1723, Adam Smith was the son of a customs official in Kirkcaldy, Scotland. ![]() 1)Īdam Smith and The Wealth of Nations | Progressives and the Era of Trustbusting | The Development of Antitrust Enforcement | Media Mergers and the Public Interest Adam Smith and The Wealth of NationsĪs the American Revolution began, a Scottish philosopher started his own economic revolution. Bill of Rights in Action Spring 2007 (Volume 23, No.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |