Adam Smith :: Philosophers Philosophy Economists Essays

turn Smith The British philosopher and economist Adam Smith was born in kirkcaldy, Scotland. He was educated at the universities of Glasgow and Oxford. In 1751 he became a professor at Glasgow. There he wrote The surmisal of Moral Sentiment in 1759. This philosophical work gained Smith an trying on in 1764 as tutor of the young duke of Buccleuch. The tutoring took Smith to France, where he started pen The Wealth of Nations in 1776. It was the first complete work on governmental economy. The reserve discusses the relationship between freedom and order, analyzes economic processes, and attacks the British mer flush toilettile systems limits on free trade. All three aspects are woven unitedly to give rise a unified social theory. In France Smith met and associated with some(prenominal) of the leading Continental philosophers of the physiocratic school, which based its political and economic doctrines on the subordination of natural law, wealth, and order. He was speci on the wholey influenced by the French philosophers Francois Quesnay and Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, whose theories Smith subsequent adapted in part to form a basis for his proclaim. The book dealt with the basic problem of how social order and human progress can be possible in a society where individuals follow their own self-interests. Smith argued that this individualism led to order and progress. In order to dress money, people produce things that other people are willing to buy. Buyers cast money for those things that they need or want most. When buyers and sellers meet in the market, a pattern of production develops that results in social harmony. Smith said that all this would happen without any conscious control or direction, as if by an invisible hand. Smith also believed that labor, not land or money, was two the source and the final measure of value. He said that wages depended on the basic needs of workers, and rent on the productivity of land, Profits, he said, were the residuum between selling prices and the cost of labor and rent. Smith said meshwork would be used to expand production. This expansion would in turn create more jobs, and the national income would grow. Smith believed that free trade and a self-acting economy would result in social progress. He criticized the British governments eminent tariffs and other limits on individual freedom in trade.