The Wealth of Nations
Smith's study of how nations grow rich, from the division of labor, prices, and wages to capital, trade, and what a government should pay for. A pin factory shows how splitting work into small tasks lets workers make far more together.
1263 pages 24h 30m reading time
- The founding work of modern economics, and the first full account of how a market economy works.
- Argues that dividing work into small, specialized tasks is the main source of growing wealth, and that how far it can go depends on the size of the market.
- Contains the "invisible hand": a person seeking only his own gain is "led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention," the good of society.
- Argues that a nation's wealth is what its people produce, not the gold and silver it hoards, and that tariffs, monopolies, and export bounties make it poorer.
- Gave lasting shape to the case for free trade, which guided Britain's repeal of its grain tariffs, the Corn Laws, in 1846, and shaped later economists such as David Ricardo and Karl Marx.
Started out of boredom
Smith began writing it in Toulouse, France, telling a friend he did so "to pass away the time."
A decade in the making
Smith spent roughly ten years writing and revising it, much of that time back home in Kirkcaldy, Scotland.
Out in revolution's year
It appeared months before the American Declaration of Independence and discusses Britain's quarrel with its colonies at length.
A fast sellout
The first printing, in two large volumes, sold out in about six months, and his friend David Hume praised it shortly before dying.
Translated from English
Uses the language of its time, including words for races and peoples that are now dated or offensive. Why