The Wealth of Nations
€0,00
First published in 1776, The Wealth of Nations is Adam Smith’s monumental enquiry into the forces that shape prosperity, commerce and society. Across five books, Smith traces the origins of economic growth, from the division of labour and the accumulation of capital to international trade, taxation and the responsibilities of government. Drawing on examples from everyday industry, ancient history and the commercial world of eighteenth-century Britain, he seeks to understand how individual ambition and collective well-being might coexist.
Far more than a treatise on markets, the work is a sweeping portrait of a society undergoing profound transformation. Smith examines the consequences of monopoly, the privileges of merchants, the condition of labourers and the relationship between wealth and public welfare, often with a sharpness that complicates his reputation as an uncomplicated advocate of free markets. A defining work of the Scottish Enlightenment, The Wealth of Nations helped establish political economy as a modern discipline and continues to shape debates about commerce, inequality and the proper limits of state power.
From the book
“No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.”
— Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations
On The Wealth of Nations
“An excellent work ... an extensive science in a single book, and the most profound ideas expressed in the most perspicuous language.”
— Edward Gibbon, in a letter to Adam Smith