Answer to Question #178882 in Economics for Aj G

Question

Adam smiths published the wealth of nations at about the same time as the formation of the united states. how might smiths ideas have influenced the development of the early American economy

Answer 1

Prominent economist Adam Smith (1723-1790) is considered the founder of political economy as an independent scientific discipline. In 1776, in the year of the proclamation of independence of the United States, Adam Smith's book "A Study on the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" was published in England. This book is a true masterpiece of economic thought, a practical guide to action for business people and politicians of the time. Adam Smith sang a hymn to self-interest as a source of economic activity. Smith's recipe for achieving economic harmony was the laissez-faire motto - to allow the economy to develop in accordance with its own laws, to free economic activity from the constraining regulation and interference of the state.

Over the next two centuries, economists refined and polished the ideas of the "Wealth of Nations", but the idea of market competition as a whole did not undergo significant changes.

Adam Smith went down in history as the "Prophet of Free Competition." His greatest merit can be considered that in the world of economics he discerned a natural self-regulating order discovered by Newton in the physical sublunary world. The main idea in the teachings of A. Smith is the idea of ​​liberalism, minimal government intervention in the economy, market self-regulation based on free prices that develop depending on supply and demand. Smith made a significant contribution to the theory of value, to the doctrine of income, productive and unproductive labor, capital and reproduction, and the economic policy of the state.