Adam Smith
Adam Smith
1723 — 1790
royaume de Grande-Bretagne
An 18th-century Scottish philosopher and economist, Adam Smith is considered the father of modern political economy. His landmark work, The Wealth of Nations (1776), laid the foundations of economic liberalism and capitalism.
Famous Quotes
« It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. »
« The division of labour is limited by the extent of the market. »
Key Facts
- 1723: born in Kirkcaldy, Scotland
- 1759: publication of The Theory of Moral Sentiments
- 1776: publication of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
- 1778: appointed Commissioner of Customs in Scotland
- 1790: died in Edinburgh
Works & Achievements
Smith's first major work, exploring the moral foundations of human society through the concept of sympathy. It earned him an international reputation even before The Wealth of Nations.
The founding masterpiece of modern political economy, this five-book work analyzes the division of labor, value, markets, money, and the role of the state in the economy.
Notes taken by students during Smith's lectures at Glasgow, published posthumously. They reveal his thinking on law, property, and political institutions.
A posthumous collection including essays on the history of astronomy and the origin of languages, reflecting the breadth of Smith's intellectual curiosity.
An essay in which Smith analyzes how languages form and evolve, applying to linguistics the same analytical method he used in economics.
Anecdotes
At the age of four, Adam Smith was briefly kidnapped by Roma travelers passing near Kirkcaldy, Scotland. He was quickly recovered and returned to his mother. His biographers have joked that he would have made a 'very poor gypsy' — he was far too absent-minded and dreamy for that way of life.
Adam Smith was famous for his fits of absent-mindedness. One day, so absorbed in his thoughts during a walk, he fell into a large tanning pit. On another occasion, he wandered fifteen miles from home in his dressing gown before realizing where he was.
A few weeks before his death in 1790, Adam Smith had nearly all of his unpublished manuscripts burned, including significant philosophical works. He was such a perfectionist that he refused to leave any unfinished work to posterity.
Smith never married and lived his entire life with his mother, to whom he was deeply devoted. When she died in 1784 at the age of 90, Smith was devastated. He confided to friends that she had been 'one of the most amiable people he had ever known.'
The Wealth of Nations was published on March 9, 1776, the same year as the American Declaration of Independence. Smith followed the American Revolution with great interest, believing that the colonies' commercial freedom perfectly illustrated his theories on the prosperity of nations.
Primary Sources
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him.
Property and civil government are very closely connected. The value of property depends upon civil government, and civil government is necessarily connected with property.
The division of labour, in so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour.
Wonder is the most ancient of all philosophical emotions; it is what drives the mind to seek out the hidden principles connecting apparently distinct phenomena.
Key Places
Adam Smith's birthplace, where he was born in 1723 and where he wrote much of The Wealth of Nations. He lived there with his mother for many years.
Smith taught moral philosophy here from 1752 to 1764. It was in Glasgow that he developed the ideas that would shape his two major works.
The intellectual capital of the Scottish Enlightenment, where Smith gave his first public lectures and where he died in 1790 after serving as a commissioner of customs.
Smith studied here from 1740 to 1746 on a scholarship. He left with mixed feelings, later criticizing the pedagogical laziness of its professors in The Wealth of Nations.
During his time in France (1764–1766) as tutor to the Duke of Buccleuch, Smith met Voltaire in Geneva and the Physiocrat economists in Paris, greatly enriching his thinking.
Gallery
Henry Scott, 3rd Duke of Buccleuch
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Thomas Gainsborough
Portrait of Francis Hutcheson (8 August 1694 – 8 August 1746)
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Allan Ramsay
The Muir portrait
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Unknown authorUnknown author
Laocoon. An essay upon the limits of painting and poetry. With remarks illustrative of various points in the history of ancient art
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim, 1729-1781 Frothingham, Ellen, 1835-1902
The Muir portrait
Wikimedia Commons, Public domain — Unknown authorUnknown author
Statue of Adam Smith, Economist and Enlightenment icon - geograph.org.uk - 973525
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 — Nicholas Mutton
The Adam Smith Statue - geograph.org.uk - 1597570
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 — Ann Harrison
Statue of Adam Smith, High Street, Edinburgh - geograph.org.uk - 1711648
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 — Roger Cornfoot
Adam Smith statue, Edinburgh
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 — Nilfanion
Adam-Smith-statue-Vienna-October-2024
Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0 — Acediscovery