Adam Smith

1723-1790 · Scottish · Moral Philosophy, Political Economy, Jurisprudence

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.

Adam Smith is remembered as the founder of economics, but he thought of himself as a moral philosopher, and his two great books are one project seen from two sides. The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) asks how creatures as partial and self-loving as we are ever come to judge ourselves and others by an impartial standard. The Wealth of Nations (1776) asks how a society of such creatures, each pursuing his own advantage, produces the ordered abundance of a commercial nation. The bridge between them is his lifelong subject: how order arises without a designer.

Topics Adam Smith addresses

• sympathy
• the impartial spectator
• the man within the breast
• fellow-feeling
• propriety and merit
• the theory of moral sentiments
• conscience as the impartial spectator
• the invisible hand
• self-interest and the butcher, brewer, and baker
• the division of labour
• the pin factory
• the extent of the market
• the system of natural liberty
• the critique of mercantilism
• productive and unproductive labour
• the labour theory of value
• real and nominal price
• the four stages of society
• commercial society
• the corruption of moral sentiments by wealth
• the mental mutilation of the labourer
• public education as a remedy
• the duties of the sovereign
• justice as the pillar of society

Converse with Adam Smith on Symposium. Every reply is grounded in Adam Smith's own writing and cites the page it came from. The corpus is public-domain text.