Who was Adam Smith?

Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and political economist, a leading figure of the Scottish Enlightenment. He is best known for two books: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). He thought of himself first as a philosopher, not as an “economist” in the modern professional sense.

When and where was he born and when did he die?

He was born in Kirkcaldy, Fife. His baptism was recorded on 5 June 1723 (Julian calendar). After the calendar reform, some writers treat 16 June as a commemorative date, known as Liberalism Day after Smith’s Classical Liberal approach. He died in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 and is buried at Canongate Kirk, near to his Edinburgh home, Panmure House.

What did he do for a living?

He studied at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford. He lectured in Edinburgh, then became Professor of Logic (1751) and Professor of Moral Philosophy (1752) at Glasgow. After The Theory of Moral Sentiments made his name, he left the university to tutor the young Duke of Buccleuch on a European tour (1764–66). He later lived in Kirkcaldy while writing The Wealth of Nations, then served as a Commissioner of Customs in Edinburgh.

What are his major works?

Work Year What it is The Theory of Moral Sentiments 1759 (revised through 1790) His moral philosophy: sympathy, conscience, virtue, and how we judge ourselves and others An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations 1776 His account of markets, growth, trade, government, and the division of labour Lectures on Jurisprudence student notes, 1760s; published 1896 / 1978 Lectures on law, property, government, and the stages of society Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres student notes; published 1963 / 1983 Style, communication, and persuasion Essays on Philosophical Subjects published 1795 Essays including the history of astronomy and the “invisible hand” of nature in science Correspondence collected in the Glasgow Edition Letters to Hume, publishers, and officials

What is The Theory of Moral Sentiments about? It asks how moral judgement works. Smith’s answer centres on sympathy (entering imaginatively into another person’s situation) and the impartial spectator (an internalised standpoint from which we approve or disapprove of motives and actions). The book is about self-command, justice, beneficence, and the desire to be both praised and praiseworthy. Smith continued to revise it until the year of his death; the last edition added a long section on the character of virtue.

What is The Wealth of Nations about?

It is an inquiry into what makes nations prosperous. Smith argues that wealth is not gold in a treasury but the annual produce of labour, raised by specialisation, exchange, capital accumulation, and reasonably secure institutions. He attacks mercantilism (the idea that national wealth is a pile of bullion protected by tariffs and monopolies). The book also covers prices, wages, profit, rent, colonies, education, defence, and taxation. It is long, digressive, and written in 18th-century prose. Many readers start with a modern introduction or a condensation, such as Eamonn Butler’s Condensed Wealth of Nations or his Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations—The Graphic Novel, rather than the full text.

Did Adam Smith invent capitalism or economics?

No. Markets, trade, and commercial society long predated him. Nor was he the first person to think about economics. What he did was pull scattered observations into a systematic account of how commercial society works and give modern economics its founding public text. Calling him the “father of capitalism” is a later, but fair, description. He analysed commercial society, the principles of human nature which give rise to it, and how individual action shaped the overall economic order; he did not found a political movement.

What did he mean by the “invisible hand”?

The phrase appears only a few times in his writings and never as a theory of laissez-faire. In The Wealth of Nations it describes how a merchant, preferring domestic industry for his own security, may unintentionally promote the public interest. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments a similar image describes how the vanity of the rich can end up employing the poor. It is a metaphor for unintended social consequences, not a claim that markets never fail or that government should do nothing.

Was Smith a free-market absolutist?

No. He favoured open competition and opposed monopolies, guild privileges, and colonial restrictions. He also argued for: • defence and the administration of justice • public works that private investors would not provide • some public support for education • regulation against fraud and against cartels • suspicion about merchants seeking laws in their own interest He thought government was necessary and often captured. “Natural liberty” for him still sat inside law, justice, and decent institutions.

What ideas are unfairly attributed to him?

Several, including: • “Greed is good.” (Smith never praised greed. He recognised that self-interest was a strong and necessary motive but was only socially beneficial if the principles of morality and justice prevailed. He regarded avarice, vanity, and profligacy as serious moral problems. Markets, for him, sit inside law and morality.) • “Laissez-faire.” (Smith wanted to dismantle privileges, monopolies and mercantilist controls—not to abolish government. He thought the state should provide defence, a justice system, and certain public works and public education.) • “The labour theory.” (The idea that what makes things valuable is the amount of labour put into them was widely accepted in Smith’s time. He knew it was lacking, but better, subjective explanations would arise only a century later. He does say that in early societies with no capital, labour cost may determine prices, but goes on to say that in modern commercial life, prices are determined by supply and demand.) • “Inequality is fine”. (Like others of the time, Smith accepted ranks and fortune as facts of human life. But he argued that many government institutions are created to benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. He cared deeply about the condition of labourers and sought to free them from the oppression of cronyism and cartels.) • “Colonies make their sponsors rich”. (Smith attacked colonial monopolies as benefitting merchants at the public’s expense. He regarded colonies as a net cost rather than an economic benefit. And he wrote with disgust about slavery.)

What is the “Adam Smith problem”?

A 19th-century German debate: how can the author of a book on sympathy also write a book that seems to rest on self-interest? Most modern scholars treat this as overstated. Smith saw self-interest as one motive among others. Moral life and market life are different domains of the same social psychology, not two contradictory systems.

Who were his main influences and friends?

Francis Hutcheson (his teacher), David Hume (his closest intellectual friend), the natural-law tradition, and French writers he met on the Continent, including the Physiocrats. Hume’s death in 1776 affected him deeply; Smith’s published letter on Hume’s character caused a public row because it praised an unbeliever.

Are there authentic portraits of him?

Very few from life. Dugald Stewart said Smith never sat for a painted portrait. The likeness contemporaries trusted is James Tassie’s paste medallion (1787, when Smith was 64). The well-known Muir portrait (oil, National Galleries of Scotland) is almost certainly posthumous and based on Tassie. John Kay etched him in 1787 and 1790. He appeared on the Bank of England paper £20 (2007–2022) and on the Clydesdale Bank £50 notes (from 1981), and in the watermark of the Royal Bank of Scotland £1 and £5 notes (1972-81). All used a Tassie-derived profile. See the ‘Adam Smith Images’ section for images.

What should I read first?

1. A short modern overview: Jerry Z. Muller, Adam Smith in His Time and Ours; or Eamonn Butler, Adam Smith: A Primer (2007).
2. Then read Eamonn Butler’s The Condensed Wealth of Nations (2011) and his Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations—The Graphic Novel.
3. Next, you might dip into The Theory of Moral Sentiments—shorter and often more surprising than people expect.
4. If you have the stamina, you could read some selected books of The Wealth of Nations (I, III, IV are the usual starting points).
5. For more detail on Smith’s life, try Nicholas Phillipson, Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life (2010), or Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith (2nd ed. 2010).

What are the best scholarly collections?

• Ryan Patrick Hanley (ed.), Adam Smith: His Life, Thought, and Legacy (2016) • Christopher J. Berry, Maria Pia Paganelli, and Craig Smith (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Adam Smith (2013) • Charles L. Griswold, Adam Smith and the Virtues of Enlightenment (1999) • Samuel Fleischacker, On Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations (2004)

Why does Adam Smith still matter?

Because he joined two questions that are still live: How do we live together without tearing each other apart? and How do societies become prosperous? He treated markets as moral and institutional arrangements, not as economic machines. He is useful both to people who want to defend open commerce and to people who want to criticise crony privilege, inequality of legal treatment, and the corruption of public office by private interest.