An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations

Business and economics

First published: 1776
Print length: 1131 pagesModern Library, 1994

Description

Adam Smith investigates how commercial and industrial societies create wealth, challenging the feudal privileges and mercantilist policies inherited by eighteenth-century Europe. He argues that specialization increases productivity, while exchange and competition coordinate the activities of people pursuing their own interests. Supply and demand can thereby contribute to national prosperity without requiring zero-sum imperial rivalry or constant central direction. Yet the treatise is broader than a simple defense of markets: Smith also examines labor, prices, capital, taxation, and public institutions, and criticizes slavery, rent-seeking, inherited privilege, public debt, and imperial military spending. The book offers a foundational account of political economy while repeatedly testing economic arrangements against their effects on workers, states, and the distribution of power.

Reading profile

About this profile

Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).

Writing: How much attention the sentences and language require.
Ideas: How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
Structure: How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
Background knowledge: Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
Emotional intensity: Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.

Writing style

Academic · Dense · Essayistic

Pace

Slow

Tone

Cerebral · Detached · Earnest · Philosophical

Structure

Argumentative

Focus

Argument · Ideas · Information

Emotional intensity

2 / 5

Reading complexity

1–5 · higher means more demanding

Writing: 5 / 5
Ideas: 5 / 5
Structure: 4 / 5
Background knowledge: 3 / 5

Themes

ClassInequalityPolitics and ideologyPowerWealthWork

About Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher and political economist whose writing examines how individual motives give rise to shared standards, institutions, and forms of social order. His two major works connect questions often treated separately. In The Theory of Moral Sentiments, he investigates how people judge conduct and sustain social life, grounding moral judgment in sympathy and the imaginative effort to see from another person’s position. In The Wealth of Nations, he turns to commercial society, tracing how specialization, exchange, prices, wages, profit, rent, taxation, and trade policy shape prosperity. Smith’s characteristic method is to begin with familiar human behavior or a concrete example, then follow its wider consequences through an interdependent system. Although closely associated with free markets, his analysis is not a simple celebration of self-interest: it also attends to inherited privilege, mercantilist restrictions, public responsibilities, and unequal bargaining power. His distinction lies in treating morality and political economy as related inquiries into the coordination of social life.

Book details

For the print edition listed above.

Publisher: Modern Library
Language: English
ISBN: 9780679424734

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