Adam Smith
, a brilliant eighteenth-century Scottish political economist, had the
advantage of judging the significance ol colonies by a rigorous examination
based on the colonial experience of 300 years. His overview has a built-in bias:
he strongly disapproved of excessive regulation of colonial trade by parent
countries. But his analysis is rich with insight and remarkably dispassionate in
its argument. Adam Smith recognized that the discovery of the New World not only
brought wealth and prosperity to the Old World, but that it also marked a divide
in the history of mankind. The passage that follows is the work of this economic
theorist who discusses problems in a language readily understandable ...
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upon British policy. Because the Declaration of Independence and
The Wealth of Nations, the political and economic reliations of empire and
mercantilism, appeared in the same year, historians have often designated 1776
as one of the turning points in modern history. The text On the cost of Empire,
the eloquent exhortation to the rulers of Britain to awaken from their grandiose
dreams of empire, is the closing passage of Smith's book.
Adam Smith was a Scottish political economist and philosopher. He has become
famous by his influential book The Wealth of Nations (1776). Smith was the son
of the comptroller of the customs at Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. The exact date
of his birth is unknown. However, he was baptized at Kirkcaldy on June 5, 1723,
his father having died some six months previously.
At the age of about fifteen, Smith proceeded to Glasgow university, studying
moral philosophy under "the never-to-be-forgotten" Francis Hutcheson (as Smith
called him). In 1740 he entered ...
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his explanation, not as the third Lord Shaftesbury and
Hutcheson had done, on a special "moral sense,"nor, like Hume, to any decisive
extent on utility,but on sympathy. There has been considerable controversy as
how far there is contradiction or contrast between Smith's emphasis in the Moral
Sentiments on sympathy as a fundamental human motive, and, on the other hand,
the key role of self-interest in the The Wealth of Nations. In the former he
seems to put more emphasis on the general harmony of human motives and
activities under a beneficent Providence, while in the latter, in spite of the
general theme of "the invisible hand" promoting the harmony of interests, Smith
finds many more ...
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Adam Smith. (2005, October 16). Retrieved December 23, 2024, from http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Adam-Smith/34932
"Adam Smith." Essayworld.com. Essayworld.com, 16 Oct. 2005. Web. 23 Dec. 2024. <http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Adam-Smith/34932>
"Adam Smith." Essayworld.com. October 16, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Adam-Smith/34932.
"Adam Smith." Essayworld.com. October 16, 2005. Accessed December 23, 2024. http://www.essayworld.com/essays/Adam-Smith/34932.
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