ADAM SMITH’S ENLIGHTENED WORLD

An Animal That Trades

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith.

Is the 1755 Smith a Prequel of the 1776 Smith?

Kwok Ping Tsang for AdamSmithWorksOctober 6, 2021

Readings of Smith by Contemporary Political Philosophers: John Rawls

Alejandra Salinas for AdamSmithWorksSeptember 22, 2021

Seeing the Invisible Bridge in Adam Smith

Steven Horwitz for AdamSmithWorksFebruary 19, 2020

#WealthOfTweets in the Classroom

This resource uses Twitter-length statements as a tool to better understand the complex text in Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations and to practice the process of distilling complex ideas into concise statements to improve communication and understanding.

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

First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith’s Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.

Smith, Hume, Liberalism, and Esotericism

Papers for a special issue of Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization.This collection includes fourteen papers (eleven focused on Smith, three on Hume) proposed for this special issue.Feedback on the papers was provided at a conference (November 2018) on early drafts by, among others, Dennis Rasmussen, Brandon Turner, Nelson Lund, Richard Boyd, Peter McNamara, Jerry Weinberger, and Arthur Melzer.Feedback welcome: Esoteric interpretation is an affair inherently uncertain and hazardous. Feedback will be much appreciated. Email addresses for each author are provided.