An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Political economy had been studied long before Adam Smith, but the Wealth of Nations may be said to constitute it for the first time as a separate science. The work was based upon a vast historical knowledge, and its principles were worked out with remarkable sanity as well as ingenuity, and skillfully illuminated by apt illustrations. In spite of more than a century of speculation, criticism, and the amassing of new facts and fresh experience, the work still stands at the best all-round statement and defense of some of the fundamental principles of the science of economics. Contents: Of the Causes of Improvement in the Productive Power of Labor and of the Order According to Which its Produce is Naturally Distributed Among the Different Ranks of the People. Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock. Of the Different Progress of Opulence in Different Nations. Of Systems of Political Economy. Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth.