An Analysis of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations

ISBN-13: 9781912127085 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 90 str.

John Collins

Opis

Adam Smith’s 1776 Inquiry into The Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations – more often known simply as The Wealth of Nations – is one of the most important books in modern intellectual history.

Considered one of the fundamental works of classical economics, it is also a prime example of the enduring power of good reasoning, and the ability of reasoning to drive critical thinking forward. Adam Smith was attempting to answer two complex questions: where does a nation’s wealth come from, and what can governments do to increase it most efficiently? At the time, perhaps the most widely accepted theory, mercantilism, argued that a nation’s wealth was literally the amount of gold and silver it held in reserve. Smith, meanwhile, weighed the evidence and came to a different conclusion: a nation’s wealth, he argued, lay in its ability to encourage economic activity, largely without government interference.

Underlying this radical redefinition was the revolutionary concept that powered Smith’s reasoning and which continues to exert a vast influence on economic thought: the idea that markets are self-regulating. Pitting his arguments against those of his predecessors, Smith carefully and persuasively reasoned out a strong case for free markets that reshaped government economic policies in the 19th-century and continues to shape global prosperity today.

200 years after it was written, Adam Smith published The Wealth of Nations is still debated by governments internationally. Smith argued that ‘mercantilism’—the theory that the national economy exists solely to strengthen the government, thus the government should regulate the economy—was wrong.

Spis treści

Ways in to the Text  Who was John Collins?  What does The Wealth of Nations Say?  Why does The Wealth of Nations Matter?  Section 1: Influences  Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context  Module 2: Academic Context  Module 3: The Problem  Module 4: The Author's Contribution  Section 2: Ideas  Module 5: Main Ideas  Module 6: Secondary Ideas  Module 7: Achievement  Module 8: Place in the Author's Work  Section 3: Impact  Module 9: The First Responses  Module 10: The Evolving Debate  Module 11: Impact and Influence Today  Module 12: Where Next?  Glossary of Terms  People Mentioned in the Text  Works Cited

O autorze

Dr John Collins is a member of the faculty at the London School of Economics, where he is currently Executive Director of the LSE IDEAS International Drug Policy Project.