Adam Smith (1723 - 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and political economist widely regarded as the founder of modern economics. [1] His most influential work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), analysed how self-interest and competition drive economic prosperity and became a foundational text of classical economics. [2] Smith also wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), a study of human ethics and sympathy that established his early reputation as a philosopher. [3]
Early life and education
Adam Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, a port town in Fife, and baptised on 5 June 1723; his father, a customs officer, had died shortly before his birth. [1] He attended the burgh school of Kirkcaldy before entering the University of Glasgow at the age of fourteen, where he studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. [2] In 1740 he won a scholarship to Balliol College, Oxford, though he later criticised the neglect and complacency he found among its teaching staff. [1]
Academic career
After returning to Scotland, Smith delivered public lectures in Edinburgh before being appointed professor of logic at the University of Glasgow in 1751, moving the following year to the chair of moral philosophy. [2] His lectures ranged across ethics, jurisprudence, and political economy, and this teaching supplied the intellectual groundwork for his later books. [4] He described these years as the most useful and happy period of his life. [1]
The Theory of Moral Sentiments
In 1759 Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which argued that moral judgement arises from sympathy and from an internalised "impartial spectator" who guides individual conduct. [3] The work brought him wide recognition and led to his appointment as tutor to a young Scottish duke, a post that funded an extended tour of France and Switzerland where he met Voltaire and leading French economists. [1]
The Wealth of Nations
Smith spent roughly a decade preparing his major economic treatise, and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations appeared in 1776. [2] In it he examined the division of labour, the operation of markets, and the ways in which individuals pursuing their own gain could, as if led by an "invisible hand," promote the wider good of society. [4] The book offered a sustained critique of mercantilism and argued for freer trade, and it is widely treated as the starting point of economics as a distinct discipline. [2]
Later life and legacy
In 1778 Smith was appointed a commissioner of customs in Edinburgh, where he spent his final years revising his published works. [1] A fellow of the Royal Society and of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, he died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790, having ordered most of his unpublished manuscripts destroyed. [1] His ideas on markets, specialisation, and self-interest shaped classical and later economic thought and remain central to debates over the role of markets and government. [4]
