SMITH, ADAM

baptized June 5, 1723, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scot. died July 17, 1790, Edinburgh Scottish social philosopher and political economist. After two centuries, Adam Smith remains a towering figure in the history of economic thought. Known primarily for a single work, An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the first comprehensive system of political economy, Smith is more properly regarded as a social philosopher whose economic writings constitute only the capstone to an overarching view of political and social evolution. If his masterwork is viewed in relation to his earlier lectures on moral philosophy and government, as well as to allusions in The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) to a work he hoped to write on the general principles of law and government, and of the different revolutions they have undergone in the different ages and periods of society, then The Wealth of Nations may be seen not merely as a treatise on economics but also as a partial exposition of a much larger scheme of historical evolution. (baptized June 5, 1723, Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scot.d. July 17, 1790, Edinburgh), Scottish social philosopher and political economist best known for his major work, An Inquiry into the nature and causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the first major work of laissez-faire economics. A brief account of the life and works of Adam Smith follows; for a full biography, see Smith, Adam. After receiving his elementary education in Kirkcaldy, Smith went to the University of Glasgow in 1737 to study moral philosophy and subsequently studied at Balliol College, Oxford. In 1748 he began delivering public lectures in Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames. Some of these dealt with rhetoric and belles-lettres, but later he took up the subject of the progress of opulence, and it was then, in his middle or late 20s, that he first expounded the economic philosophy of the obvious and simple system of natural liberty which he was later to proclaim to the world. In about 1750 he met David Hume, who became one of the closest of his many friends. Smith was appointed professor of logic (1751) and later of moral philosophy at Glasgow. In 1759 he published The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which was on human nature. From 1764 to 1766 Smith travelled as tutor with the young Duke of Buccleuch. Returning to Kirkcaldy in 1767 he spent much of the next nine years there and in London working on The Wealth of Nations. This work contained, among other things, Smith's famous exposition of the invisible hand of competition as guiding an economic system based on individual self-interest. After being appointed commissioner of customs and of salt duties for Scotland in 1777, he went to live in Edinburgh with his mother. He died there in 1790 after a painful illness. He had apparently devoted a considerable part of his income to numerous secret acts of charity. Shortly before his death Smith had nearly all his manuscripts destroyed. In his last years he seems to have been planning two major treatises, one on the theory and history of law and one on the sciences and arts. The posthumously published Essays on Philosophical Subjects (1795) probably contains parts of what would have been the latter treatise. Additional reading The complete works have appeared in a definitive edition, The Glasgow Edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, 6 vol. in 7 (197683), including vol. l, The Theory of Moral Sentiments , ed. by D.D. Raphael and A.L. MacFie (1976), vol. 2, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, 2 vol., ed. by R.H. Campbell and A.S. Skinner, vol. 3, Essays on Philosophical Subjects, ed. by W.P.D. Wightman and J.C. Bryce (1980), which contains the interesting The History of Astronomy, vol. 4, Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, ed. by J.C. Bryce (1983), and vol. 5, Lectures on Jurisprudence, ed. by R.L. Meek, D.D. Raphael, and P.G. Stein (1978). For the nonspecialist, Robert L. Heilbroner (ed.), The Essential Adam Smith (1986), offers fairly extensive readings and short discussions of Smith's main works.Among biographical works are John Rae, Life of Adam Smith (1895, reprinted 1965); William R. Scott, Adam Smith as Student and Professor (1937, reprinted 1965), including An Early Draft of Part of The Wealth of Nations, various documents, and correspondence; and Dugald Stewart, Biographical Memoirs of Adam Smith. . . , vol. 10 in The Collected Works of Dugald Stewart (1858, reprinted 1966).Donald Winch, Adam Smith's Politics: An Essay in Historiographic Revision (1978), reinterprets Smith's place in the history of economic and political thought. Andrew S. Skinner and Thomas Wilson, Essays on Adam Smith (1975), contains discussion by well-known scholars of various aspects of Smith's work. Knud Haakonssen, The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith (1981), compares their philosophical systems. Useful articles include Adolph Lowe, The Classical Theory of Economic Growth, Social Research, 21(2):127158 (Summer 1954); Nathan Rosenberg, Adam Smith on the Division of Labour: Two Views or One? Economica, 32(126):127139 (May 1965), and Some Institutional Aspects of the Wealth of Nations, The Journal of Political Economy, 68(6):557570 (December 1960); Joseph J. Spengler, Adam Smith's Theory of Economic Growth, Southern Economic Journal, 25(4):397415, 26(1):112 (April and July 1959); the entry by Jacob Viner, Adam Smith, in David L. Sills (ed.), International Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences, vol. 14, pp. 322329 (1968); and the entry by Andrew S. Skinner, Adam Smith, in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, ed. by John Eatwell Murray Milgate and Peter Newman, vol. 4 (1987), pp. 357375, with a bibliography. Robert L. Heilbroner