Adam Smith
(1723-1790)
Smith was one of those 18th century Scottish moral philosophers whose impulses led to our modern day theories; his work marks the breakthrough of an evolutionary approach which has progressively displaced the stationary Aristotelian view.
If one is interested in the study of economics -- and one should certainly be if they are at all interested in governmental policy, then one should begin with a good dictionary and a copy of Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations . This is likely all that one needs to do; and this is indeed fortunate. For, to go beyond Adam Smith, it is to go beyond into the writings of the thousands of economists that have written since; and, thus, to go into a thicket full of obscure, and for the most part, meaningless terms.
Adam Smith's Life:-
On the Firth of Forth just across and to the north of Edinburgh, in County Fife, will be found a town, Kirkcaldy; it is here, in the year 1723, Adam Smith was born. Adam Smith was to become the first political economist the world had ever known. He was to take his place at the head of the first school of economics, one that continues and is known as the "classical school."Adam's father, who had died before Adam's birth, was a "comptroller of customs." In 1740, at the age of seventeen, Smith was sent off to Oxford on scholarship. It is here that he learned Greek and began a "sound accumulation of Greek learning." It is here, too, that he read Hume's A Treatise of Human Nature, a work written during the years 1734-5. (David Hume, from Edinburgh, born twelve years before Smith, was another of those Scottish "lights" which were so prominent in this age.) At any rate Smith's interest in Hume's work brought him into conflict with the authorities at Oxford.2 On comi ...