The Wealth of Nations

Front Cover
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, Oct 13, 2020 - Political Science - 640 pages

The first--and still the most eloquent--expression of the economic theories of capitalism.

Published in 1776, in the same year as the Declaration of Independence, The Wealth of Nations has had a similarly significant impact on the course of modern history. Adam Smith's celebrated defense of free market economies was written with such expressive power and clarity that the first edition sold out in six months. While its most remarkable and enduring innovation was to see the whole of economic life as a unified system, it is notable also as one of the Enlightenment's most eloquent testaments to the sanctity of the individual in his relation to the state. This edition contains in one volume the most influential first four books of Smith's masterwork. 

 

Contents

Introduction and Plan of the Work
1
Of the Principle which gives occasion to
12
Of the Origin and Use of Money
19
Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities
25
Of the Component Parts of the Price
41
Of the Natural and Market Price
48
Of the Wages of Labour
56
Of the Profits of Stock
78
Of the different Employment of Capitals
320
BOOK III
336
Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns
351
How the Commerce of the Towns contributed
362
Of Systems of Political Economy
374
Of Restraints upon the Importation from Foreign
396
Of the extraordinary Restraints upon
415
Of Drawbacks
440

Of Wages and Profit in the different
88
Employments of Labour and Stock 8888
130
BOOK II
241
Of Money considered as a particular Branch
250
Of the Accumulation of Capital or
294
Of Stock lent at Interest
312
Of Treaties of Commerce
482
Of Colonies
493
Conclusion of the Mercantile System
577
Of the Agricultural Systems or of those Systems
596
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Common terms and phrases

About the author (2020)

Adam Smith was born in a small village in Kirkcaldy, Scotland in 1723. He entered the University of Glasgow at age fourteen, and later attended Balliol College at Oxford. After lecturing for a period, he held several teaching positions at Glasgow University. His greatest achievement was writing The Wealth of Nations (1776), a five-book series that sought to expose the true causes of prosperity, and installed him as the father of contemporary economic thought. He died in Edinburgh on July 19, 1790.

Bibliographic information