On the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published this month in 1776. Not only did it give us economic measures like GDP, but upon its release, Adam Smith’s volume shaped policy debates, and this has never stopped. Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and Alan Greenspan are just some recent notables who took bearings from Smith. In his day, Smith offered a path between reaction and revolution, and today, a path between the national conservatism of the Trump administration and its post-liberal critics.
A professor of moral philosophy, Smith sought a path to right order marked “not by the clamorous importunity of partial interests, but by an extensive view of the general good.” Between tribalism and utopia, The Wealth of Nations proposed “freedom of trade” as a way for persons to communicate their aspirations in a manner worthy of human dignity. In Smith’s political economy, government makes no laws privileging companies; restricting peoples’ economic choices, such laws both harm the poor and stymie “natural liberty.”
Many likely find the thought of a 1000-page book intimidating. Perhaps some worry that its reputation as foundational to economics must mean the volume is technical, full of tables and charts, and likely a bit dull. In fact, The Wealth of Nations is a great read, and instead of economics, you can think of it as a philosophy of civilizations; a philosophy of history that stands as one of the greatest achievements of Western humanism. To list just a few topics, its pages are packed with the history of childbirth, colonization, education, fashion, machines, slavery, and war. Economics is part of a larger project of political anthropology: What is the character of peoples inside a civilization devoted to commerce rather than war (the Ancients) or religion (the Middle Ages)?
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