The first true economist’s life began on the east coast of Scotland in 1723. Adam Smith’s father died before his birth and was considered a “comptroller of customs“ (Landry). After graduating from Glasgow at the age of seventeen, Adam was sent to Oxford on a scholarship While at Oxford, Adam gained a strong learning of Greek and later became interested in David Hume’s work. These interests proved to be only the beginning of Smith’s journey into a lifetime surrounded by new ideas and knowledge.

In order to even further enrich his educational background, at the age of twenty-eight Smith became a professor of logic at Glasgow. The following year, in 1754, he took the Chair of Moral Philosophy and five years later went on to publish his Theory of Moral Sentiments, a work about the standards of

ethical conduct that holds a society together. Surprisingly, most economists left this work unread; those who did read it found it superficially inconsistent with The Wealth of Nations (Smith’s second book published in 1776) and were confused with Smith’s failure to relate the books to each other. Little did readers know this professor of logic was preparing to offer several economic ideas that would shape the views of many (Wheatsheat).

After a lifetime of such accomplishment, Smith moved back to Scotland in 1778 and was appointed commissioner of customs for Edinburgh (Wheatsheat). Adam Smith died shortly after, but the science of economics he created had only begun. The scholarly and successful thinker had provided the institution of economics with such a foundation, that still today it remains only slightly shaken.

Part of Adam Smith’s market mechanism theories are best summed up in a concept mostly associated with Smith. It is the idea of the “invisible hand.” The invisible hand refers to the operation of market forces. Smith argues that markets would guide economic activity and act like an “invisible hand” allocating recourses. Smith’s argument means that prices would rise when there was a shortage of something and fall when i

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