Though the exact date that Adam Smith was born is unknown, it is known that he was baptized on June 5, 1723 in Kirkcaldy and died on July 17, 1790 in Edinburgh and was buried in the Canongate churchyard. Adam Smith remains a tower figure in the history of economic thought. Although he is primarily known for a single work, Wealth of Nations, the first comprehensive system of political economy, he is regarded as a social philosopher whose economic writings constitute views on political and social evolution.
“Wealth” in essence means “well-being”; Smith's book is in fact about material well-being. The Wealth of Nations is an influential statement of the case for laissez-faire, the theory that government should not attempt to control or direct economic activity. Smith’s a
In Book IV Smith criticizes the mercantile system of public policy. It was once thought that the wealth of a nation consisted in money (gold and silver). Governments tried to make their countries wealthy by eliminating export of gold and silver. However, merchants found this inconvenient, because they needed to send gold and silver abroad to pay for what they were importing, and they persuaded governments instead to attend to "the balance of trade" (the relation between imports and exports), claiming that what makes a country rich is to export more than one imports, since exports bring money into the country and imports send it out. Therefore governments have adopted policies favoring exports and holding back imports, encouraging local production. This policy Smith calls the "mercantile" policy because merchants suppo
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