About the book
Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith set out to explain how commercial and industrial societies produce wealth. He takes aim at the feudal and mercantilist order of his day, with its guilds, protective tariffs and colonial trading monopolies, and at the belief that states grow rich only at one another's expense. Wealth, in his account, comes from free exchange, competition between individuals and the rising output that comes from dividing labour into specialized tasks. The treatise uses the metaphor of an invisible hand and also condemns slavery, public debt, primogeniture and rent-seeking by landlords. It became a founding text of classical economics, and Marxian economics later arose as a critique of the tradition it founded.
Barack Obama was reported to have included it on a list of books he cited, and Neil deGrasse Tyson named it among works every intelligent person should read, to understand capitalism as a greed-driven force of nature. David Heinemeier Hansson found its plain, if repetitive, language made basic economic theory easy to follow, while doubting that Smith was right.
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This book has 3 recommendations
Neil deGrasse Tyson (Astrophysicist, Author & Science Communicator)
Which books should be read by every single intelligent person on planet? [...] The Wealth of Nations (Smith) [to learn that capitalism is an economy of greed, a force of nature unto itself]. If you read all of the above works you will glean profound insight into most of what has driven the history of the western world.
Barack Obama (Former USA President)
Obama, unsurprisingly, appears to be more drawn to stories sympathetic to the working classes than is McCain. Obama cites John Steinbeck’s “In Dubious Battle,” about a labor dispute; Robert Caro’s “Power Broker,” about Robert Moses; and Studs Terkel’s “Working.” But he also includes Adam Smith’s “Wealth of Nations” and “Theory of Moral Sentiments” on his list.
David Heinemeier Hansson (Co-Founder/Basecamp)
It’s hard to believe that Adam Smith wrote this tome in 1776! It’s written in such plain, if repetitive, language that it makes the basic economic theory easily accessible. That doesn’t mean it’s right. The book on Debt: The First 5,000 Years spent a fair chunk of time debunking many of Smith’s accounts of “the barter, truck, and exchange” cultures that supposedly were the rude state of man before the introduction of coinage. But the book is all the better from a read with a critical mind. It presents such a basic, plain description of capitalism and its functions that serves as a proper grounding for a critique. It’s also full of kinda hilarious deep dives into the exchange rates between silver and gold and other commodities set to 1770s prices.
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