Portrait of the political economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) by an unknown artist, which is known as the ‘Muir portrait’ after the family who once owned it. The portrait was probably painted posthumously, based on a medallion by James Tassie.
School period
Gallery of Adam Smith
Dunnikier Way, Kirkcaldy KY1 3LR, United Kingdom
Adam Smith attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy - characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period" - from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
College/University
Gallery of Adam Smith
University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason and free speech.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Oxford OX1 3BJ, United Kingdom
In 1740, Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition.
Career
Gallery of Adam Smith
1790
Portrait of Smith by John Kay
Gallery of Adam Smith
2009
220 High Street, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland
Later building on the site where Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.
2009 photograph of a 19th-century building near the house where philosopher, economist and author Adam Smith lived, 1767-1776. 220 High Street, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. At this location, Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations", according to a plaque on the pictured building. The original house was torn down in 1834.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Portrait of the political economist and philosopher Adam Smith (1723-1790) by an unknown artist, which is known as the ‘Muir portrait’ after the family who once owned it. The portrait was probably painted posthumously, based on a medallion by James Tassie.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Dunnikier Way, Kirkcaldy KY1 3LR, United Kingdom
Adam Smith attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy - characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period" - from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
Gallery of Adam Smith
153 Canongate, Edinburgh EH8 8BN, United Kingdom
Smith's burial place in Canongate Kirkyard.
Gallery of Adam Smith
192 Royal Mile, Edinburgh EH1 1RF, United Kingdom
A statue of Smith in Edinburgh's High Street erected through private donations organized by the Adam Smith Institute.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Adam Smith's Spinning Top, sculpture by Jim Sanborn at Cleveland State University.
Gallery of Adam Smith
David Hume was a friend and contemporary of Smith's.
Gallery of Adam Smith
François Quesnay, one of the leaders of the physiocratic school of thought
Gallery of Adam Smith
A statue of Smith in Edinburgh's High Street, erected through private donations organised by the Adam Smith Institute. Bronze statue of Adam Smith, a philosopher during the Scottish Enlightenment, in front of St. Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh by Alexander Stoddar.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Adam Smith Theatre, Bennochy Road, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland
The Adam Smith Theatre in Kirkcaldy
Gallery of Adam Smith
Smith's burial place in Canongate Kirkyard
Gallery of Adam Smith
1922 printing of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Gallery of Adam Smith
The first page of The Wealth of Nations, 1776 London edition
Gallery of Adam Smith
James Tassie's enamel paste medallion of Smith provided the model for many engravings and portraits that remain today.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Kirkcaldy Town, Scotland
A commemorative plaque for Smith is located in Smith's home town of Kirkcaldy.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Smith has been commemorated in the UK on banknotes printed by two different banks; his portrait has appeared since 1981 on the £50 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, and in March 2007 Smith's image also appeared on the new series of £20 notes issued by the Bank of England, making him the first Scotsman to feature on an English banknote.
Gallery of Adam Smith
Achievements
Senate House, Malet St, Bloomsbury, London WC1E 7HU, UK
Statue of Smith built in 1867–1870 at the old headquarters of the University of London, 6 Burlington Gardens
Membership
Royal Society of Edinburgh
1784
22-26 George St, Edinburgh EH2 2PQ, United Kingdom
The Royal Society of Edinburgh building, of which Adam was a member.
Royal Society of Arts
8 John Adam St, London WC2N 6EZ, United Kingdom
The Royal Society of Arts, of which Smith was a member.
Later building on the site where Smith wrote The Wealth of Nations.
2009 photograph of a 19th-century building near the house where philosopher, economist and author Adam Smith lived, 1767-1776. 220 High Street, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. At this location, Smith wrote "The Wealth of Nations", according to a plaque on the pictured building. The original house was torn down in 1834.
Adam Smith attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy - characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period" - from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
University Avenue, Glasgow G12 8QQ, United Kingdom
Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason and free speech.
A statue of Smith in Edinburgh's High Street, erected through private donations organised by the Adam Smith Institute. Bronze statue of Adam Smith, a philosopher during the Scottish Enlightenment, in front of St. Giles' Cathedral on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh by Alexander Stoddar.
Smith has been commemorated in the UK on banknotes printed by two different banks; his portrait has appeared since 1981 on the £50 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, and in March 2007 Smith's image also appeared on the new series of £20 notes issued by the Bank of England, making him the first Scotsman to feature on an English banknote.
(In his first major work, economist Adam Smith concentrate...)
In his first major work, economist Adam Smith concentrates on ethics and charity. The Theory of Moral Sentiments divides moral philosophy into four parts: Ethics and Virtue; Private rights and Natural liberty; Familial rights (called Economics); and State and Individual rights (called Politics). Smith establishes the intellectual framework for all of his later work, including The Wealth of Nations.
(Adam Smiths landmark treatise on the free market paved t...)
Adam Smiths landmark treatise on the free market paved the way for modern capitalism, arguing that competition is the engine of a productive society, and that self-interest will eventually come to enrich the whole community, as if by an invisible hand. Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.
(Can you see the Pretty Things?
There are many things tha...)
Can you see the Pretty Things?
There are many things that Rory would like to forget about his childhood growing up in rural Arkansas. Hed like to forget his alcoholic father or absent mother. Hed like to forget about his ex-girlfriend, now married to his ex-best friend. Sometimes, hed even like to forget about his older brother Joe. Joe saw the world differently than other people--sometimes in beautiful ways, seeing what he always called the Pretty Things. But sometimes the Pretty Things turned ugly and bad things happened. Those are the things Rory wishes he could forget most of all.
When his car breaks down on the side of the road just out of town, a young girl named Sylvia appears from the corn fields. Sylvia is a Valkyrie sent by the Norse god Odin to deliver Rory to Valhalla. Because today is the day hes going to die. Together, Rory and Sylvia walk back through the memories of Rorys childhood, this time seeing them the way Joe saw them. Rory must face the Pretty Things, the Ugly Things, and all the real life in between before its time to say goodbye.
(The Wealth of Nations was published 9 March 1776, during ...)
The Wealth of Nations was published 9 March 1776, during the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. It influenced a number of authors and economists, as well as governments and organizations. For example, Alexander Hamilton was influenced in part by The Wealth of Nations to write his Report on Manufactures, in which he argued against many of Smith's policies. Interestingly, Hamilton based much of this report on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, in part, Colbert's ideas that Smith responded to with The Wealth of Nations. Many other authors were influenced by the book and used it as a starting point in their own work, including Jean-Baptiste Say, David Ricardo, Thomas Malthus and, later, Ludwig von Mises. The Russian national poet Aleksandr Pushkin refers to The Wealth of Nations in his 1833 verse-novel Eugene Onegin.
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume II - Scholar's Choice Edition
(
This work has been selected by scholars as being cultur...)
This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important, and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact, and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore, you will see the original copyright references, library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world), and other notations in the work.
This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.
As a reproduction of a historical artifact, this work may contain missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process, and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Vol 2
(
First published in 1776, the year in which the Americ...)
First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith's Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.
Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations' supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation's wealth should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity in turn requires voluntary exchange of goods in a peaceful, well-ordered market. How to establish and maintain such markets? For Smith the answer lay in man's social instincts, which government may encourage by upholding social standards of decency, honesty, and virtue, but which government undermines when it unduly interferes with the intrinsically private functions of production and exchange.
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 1
(
First published in 1776, the year in which the American...)
First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith's Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.
Criticizing mercantilists who sought to use the state to increase their nations' supply of precious metals, Smith points out that a nation's welath should be measured by the well-being of its people. Prosperity in turn requires voluntary exchange of goods in a peaceful, well-ordered market. How to establish and maintain such markets? For Smith the answer lay in man's social instincts, which government may encourage by upholding social standards of decency, honesty, and virtue, but which government undermines when it unduly interferes with the intrinsically private functions of production and exchange.
(
Few writings are more often cited as a cornerstone of m...)
Few writings are more often cited as a cornerstone of modern economic thought than those of Adam Smith. Few are less read.
The sheer strength of his great work, The Wealth of Nations, discourages many from attempting to explore its rich and lucid arguments. In this brilliantly crafted volume, one of the most eminent economists of our day provides a generous selection from the entire body of Smith's work, ranging from his fascinating psychological observations on human nature to his famous treatise on what Smith called a "society of natural liberty," The Wealth of Nations.
Among the works represented in this volume in addition to The Wealth of Nations are The History of Astronomy,Lectures on Jurisprudence, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and Smith's correspondence with David Hume.
Before each of Smith's writings Robert Heilbroner presents a clear and lively discussion that will interest the scholar as much as it will clarify the work for the non-specialist. Adam Smith emerges from this collection of his writings, as he does from his portrait in Professor Heilbroner's well-known book, as the first economist to deserve the title of "worldly philosopher."
Correspondence of Adam Smith (Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith)
(
This volume offers an engaging portrait of Smith throug...)
This volume offers an engaging portrait of Smith through more than four hundred letters; also included are appendices with Smith's thoughts on the "Contest with America" and a collection of letters from Jeremy Bentham.
Adam Smith was a Scottish economist, philosopher and author. He wrote what is considered the "bible of capitalism," The Wealth of Nations, in which he details the first system of political economy.
Background
Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in the County of Fife, Scotland. His father, also Adam Smith, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (Judge Advocate) and also served as comptroller of the Customs in Kirkcaldy. In 1720, he married Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife. His father died two months after Adam was born, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smith's baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723 and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, which is unknown.
Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by gypsies at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him.
Education
Adam Smith attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy - characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period" - from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing.
Smith entered the University of Glasgow when he was fourteen and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here, Smith developed his passion for liberty, reason and free speech. In 1740, Smith was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition. He received the bachelor of arts degree in 1744. Returning then to Kirkcaldy, he devoted himself to his studies and gave a series of lectures on English literature.
In 1762, the University of Glasgow conferred on Smith the title of Doctor of Laws.
In 1748, he moved to Edinburgh, where he became a friend of David Hume, whose skepticism he did not share. In 1751 Smith became professor of logic at the University of Glasgow and the following year professor of moral philosophy. Eight years later he published his Theory of Moral Sentiments. Smith's central notion in this work is that moral principles have social feeling or sympathy as their basis. Sympathy is a common or analogous feeling that an individual may have with the affections or feelings of another person. The source of this fellow feeling is not so much one's observation of the expressed emotion of another person as one's thought of the situation that the other person confronts. Sympathy usually requires knowledge of the cause of the emotion to be shared. If one approves of another's passions as suitable to their objects, he thereby sympathizes with that person.
In 1764 Smith resigned his professorship to take up duties as a traveling tutor for the young Duke of Buccleuch and his brother. Carrying out this responsibility, he spent 2 years on the Continent. In Toulouse, he began writing his best-known work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. While in Paris he met Denis Diderot, Claude Adrien Helvétius, Baron Paul d'Holbach, François Quesnay, A. R. J. Turgot, and Jacques Necker. These thinkers doubtless had some influence on him. His life abroad came to an abrupt end when one of his charges was killed.
Smith then settled in Kirkcaldy with his mother. He continued to work on The Wealth of Nations, which was finally published in 1776. The Wealth of Nations, easily the best known of Smith's writings, is a mixture of descriptions, historical accounts, and recommendations. The wealth of a nation, Smith insists, is to be gauged by the number and variety of consumable goods it can command. Free trade is essential for the maximum development of wealth for any nation because through such trade a variety of goods becomes possible.
His mother died at the age of 90, and Smith was grief-stricken. In 1778, he was made customs commissioner. Smith apparently spent some time in London, where he became a friend of Benjamin Franklin. On his deathbed he demanded that most of his manuscript writings be destroyed.
(Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam S...)
Religion
There has been considerable scholarly debate about the nature of Smith's religious views. Smith's father had shown a strong interest in Christianity and belonged to the moderate wing of the Church of Scotland. The fact that Adam Smith received the Snell Exhibition suggests that he may have gone to Oxford with the intention of pursuing a career in the Church of England.
Anglo-American economist Ronald Coase has challenged the view that Smith was a deist, based on the fact that Smith's writings never explicitly invoke God as an explanation of the harmonies of the natural or the human worlds. Smith does sometimes refer to the "Great Architect of the Universe", later scholars such as Jacob Viner have "very much exaggerated the extent to which Adam Smith was committed to a belief in a personal God", a belief for which Coase finds little evidence in passages such as the one in the Wealth of Nations in which Smith writes that the curiosity of mankind about the "great phenomena of nature", such as "the generation, the life, growth and dissolution of plants and animals", has led men to "enquire into their causes", and that "superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them, from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with than the agency of the gods".
Some other authors argue that Smith's social and economic philosophy is inherently theological and that his entire model of social order is logically dependent on the notion of God's action in nature.
Smith was also a close friend and later the executor of David Hume, who was commonly characterised in his own time as an atheist. The publication in 1777 of Smith's letter to William Strahan, in which he described Hume's courage in the face of death in spite of his irreligiosity, attracted considerable controversy.
Politics
Smith warned that a business-dominated political system would allow a conspiracy of businesses and industry against consumers, with the former scheming to influence politics and legislation.
Views
Smith warned that each person must exercise impartiality of judgment in relation to his own feelings and behavior. Well aware of the human tendency to overlook one's own moral failings and the self-deceit in which individuals often engage, Smith argued that each person must scrutinize his own feelings and behavior with the same strictness he employs when considering those of others. Such an impartial appraisal is possible because a person's conscience enables him to compare his own feelings with those of others. Conscience and sympathy, then, working together provide moral guidance for man so that the individual can control his own feelings and have a sensibility for the affections of others.
Smith assumed that if each person pursues his own interest the general welfare of all will be fostered. He objected to governmental control, although he acknowledged that some restrictions are required. The capitalist invariably produces and sells consumable goods in order to meet the greatest needs of the people. In so fulfilling his own interest, the capitalist automatically promotes the general welfare. In the economic sphere, said Smith, the individual acts in terms of his own interest rather than in terms of sympathy. Thus, Smith made no attempt to bring into harmony his economic and moral theories.
Quotations:
"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."
"Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition."
"No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable."
"Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another."
"All money is a matter of belief."
"The real tragedy of the poor is the poverty of their aspirations."
"Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality... for one very rich man, there must be at least five hundred poor."
"What can be added to the happiness of a man who is in health, out of debt, and has a clear conscience?"
"Virtue is more to be feared than vice, because its excesses are not subject to the regulation of conscience."
"All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind."
Membership
In 1784, Adam Smith became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He was also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Royal Society of Edinburgh
,
Edinburgh
1784
Royal Society of Arts
,
London
Personality
Smith was described by several of his contemporaries and biographers as comically absent-minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait, and a smile of "inexpressible benignity". He was known to talk to himself, a habit that began during his childhood when he would smile in rapt conversation with invisible companions. He also had occasional spells of imaginary illness, and he is reported to have had books and papers placed in tall stacks in his study.
Physical Characteristics:
Smith has been alternately described as someone who "had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch, and a speech impediment" and one whose "countenance was manly and agreeable."
Quotes from others about the person
"Mr. Burke talked in very high terms of Dr. Adam Smith; praised the clearness and depth of his understanding, his profound and extensive learning, and the vast accession that had accrued to British literature and philosophy from these exertions, and described his heart as being equally good with his head and his manners as peculiarly pleasing. Mr. Smith, he said, told him, after they had conversed on subjects of political economy, that he was the only man, who, without communication, thought on these topics exactly as he did." - Robert Bisset, The Life of Edmund Burke.
"Adam Smith, who has strong claim to being both the Adam and the Smith of systematic economics, was a professor of moral philosophy and it was at that forge that economics was made." - Kenneth Boulding (1969) Economics As A Moral Science.
"He's pre-capitalist, a figure of the Enlightenment. What we would call capitalism he despised. People read snippets of Adam Smith, the few phrases they teach in school. Everybody reads the first paragraph of The Wealth of Nations where he talks about how wonderful the division of labor is. But not many people get to the point hundreds of pages later, where he says that division of labor will destroy human beings and turn people into creatures as stupid and ignorant as it is possible for a human being to be. And therefore in any civilized society the government is going to have to take some measures to prevent division of labor from proceeding to its limits." - Noam Chomsky (1995) Class Warfare.
"The greatest of Scotchmen was the first economist, Adam Smith." - John Kenneth Galbraith (1977) The Age of Uncertainty.
Connections
Adam Smith never married and seems to have maintained a close relationship with his mother, whom he lived with after his return from France and who died six years before his own death.