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An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nationsby D., Adam Smith LL
Book desription: Hartford: Printed for Oliver D. Cooke 1811 by Pete. Leather. A rare find is this complete works in 2 Volumes, Bound in contemporary mottled full calf, age rubbing and toning, some browning, spotting and marks on many pages, a good copy of this famous work. Many pages are browned where text is but all still readable. About the author, Adam Smith (1723-1790), a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. He is a major contributor to the modern perception of free market economics. One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism. Smith's work helped to build the foundation of the modern academic discipline of free market economics and provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade, capitalism, and libertarianism. The Wealth of Nations is Smith's most influential work, and is considered to be very important in the creation of the field of economics and its development into an autonomous systematic discipline. In the Western world, it is arguably the most influential book on the subject ever published. When the book, which has become a classic manifesto against mercantilism (the theory that large reserves of bullion are essential for economic success), appeared in 1776, there was a strong sentiment for free trade in both Britain and America. This new feeling had been born out of the economic hardships and poverty caused by the American War of Independence. However, at the time of publication, not everybody was immediately convinced of the advantages of free trade: the British public and Parliament still clung to mercantilism for many years to come. The Wealth of Nations also rejects the Physiocratic school's emphasis on the importance of land; instead, Smith believed labour was paramount, and that a division of labour would effect a great increase in production. One example he used was the making of pins. One worker could probably make only twenty pins per day. But if ten people divided up the eighteen steps required to make a pin, they could make a combined amount of 48,000 pins in one day. However, it is less well known that Smith also concluded that excessive division of labour would lead man to his most ignorant state possible. Nations was so successful, in fact, that it led to the abandonment of earlier economic schools, and later economists, such as Thomas Malthus and David Ricardo, focused on refining Smith's theory into what is now known as classical economics. Both Modern economics and, separately, Marxian economics owe significantly to classical economics. Malthus expanded Smith's ruminations on overpopulation, while Ricardo believed in the "iron law of wages" ? that overpopulation would prevent wages from topping the subsistence level. Smith postulated an increase of wages with an increase in production, a view considered more accurate today. . Good. 1811.
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