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The Wealth of Nations Paperback – April 2, 2012

by Adam Smith (Author)

3.9 11 ratings

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The Wealth of NationsBy Adam Smith

Print length

544 pages
Language

English
Publication date

April 2, 2012
Dimensions

6 x 1.23 x 9 inches
ISBN-10

1613823002
ISBN-13

978-1613823002
Lexile measure

1500L
See all details

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Simon & Brown (April 2, 2012)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 544 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1613823002
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1613823002
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1500L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.58 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 1.23 x 9 inches

Customer Reviews:
3.9 11 ratings

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3.9 out of 5

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melissa

Let the individual be the master of his destiny. ...

Reviewed in the United States on February 13, 2015

Let the individual be the master of his destiny. Let free markets rule themselves and correct naturally. Let people attain wealth...it naturally spreads itself. If the government stays out of the way, these economic principals should benefit everyone. That's what I got. I tried very hard to read it, skimmed a lot but I can't say there was anything I didn't agree with.

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Donald Wettstein

Nonetheless it was quite informative and an excellent reminder about how the more things change - the ...

Reviewed in the United States on July 5, 2014

Verified Purchase

This is one of those books you always know about, but probably not read very often.
The language is from the times so it seems quite cumbersome and the typeface makes reading at least somewhat arduous.
Nonetheless it was quite informative and an excellent reminder about how the more things change - the more they stay the same.
It should be required reading for all politicians and many government employees.

2 people found this helpful

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ILikeBooks

Five Stars

Reviewed in the United States on May 6, 2015

Classic!

Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014

Verified Purchase

I scanned through it and have not begun to read it yet. I don't know that I will. The print is so ridiculously small. Did the publishers think teenagers with perfect eyesight were going to be reading this classic?

One person found this helpful

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Brandon

This is an extremely dense read. Expect it to ...

Reviewed in the United States on January 2, 2015

Verified Purchase

This is an extremely dense read. Expect it to take a long time and if you're not dead set on reading it, then I promise you won't finish it.

Reviewed in the United States on December 24, 2014

Verified Purchase

all went well with order and shipping. Thank you

Reviewed in the United States on August 25, 2014

Intriguing.

Economics as derived from perceptive, common-sense observation of facts

Reviewed in the United States on February 6, 2014

I forget when I first became aware of the existence of Adam Smith and his famous work on economics, but I certainly knew about him by 1981, when Deng Xiaoping had started to nudge China away from its hardcore Maoist past, and I saw a cartoon in The New Yorker that showed two Chinese workers. One was saying to the other: “Adam Smith say: Buy cheap, sell dear.”

I regret that I don’t remember which cartoonist it was. But the caption highlighted the fact that Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was, in the popular imagination, the capitalist equivalent and counterweight to Karl Marx’s Capital. And indeed, what led me to The Wealth of Nations now was the fact that I was planning to tackle Marx’s book, and I thought I should probably read Smith’s earlier work first.

I’m glad that now I have, for one thing because, even though The Wealth of Nations is no cakewalk, and indeed was more difficult to read than I was expecting, it is a model of clarity and common sense compared with Capital, which I have now started reading. If I had to summarize my impression of Adam Smith based on reading his book, I would say that he comes across as an intelligent, perceptive, educated, and unassuming writer, even as he has strong viewpoints on things which he does not hesitate to voice. There is none of Marx’s arrogance, condescension, or defensiveness. My only criticism of the content is that as a 21st-century reader I sometimes felt I was getting too much detail about nuances of 18th-century British taxation and market prices; but quite possibly Smith never dreamed he would have readers in the 21st century.

He deserves them. It still makes an excellent introduction to economics and to “political economy” generally. In five “books” Smith sets out to explain:

how wealth is created
how stock or capital is accumulated
how and why different countries do or do not become wealthier
how governments try to influence economies
how governments finance their operations

Marx starts his work with a convoluted proof that the value of commodities is directly proportionate to the quantity of human labor that goes into their production. Smith starts his with a much more direct account of how wealth, or opulence, his preferred term, derives not so much from labor directly, but rather from the division of labor. As any task is broken down into its component steps and actions, and these are taken up by different people who specialize in those steps, productivity increases. If this productivity outstrips the growth of population, then there is an increase in wealth per person. Since people naturally incline toward the division of labor and its efficiencies, any society or government that wants to promote the increase of wealth simply needs to get out of people’s way. In a liberal society, anyway, it will happen by itself if people are left to their own devices.

Generally in world history, societies have not been liberal and people have not been left to themselves. But even when severely hampered by uncongenial governments and adverse circumstances, people have often managed to expand wealth. In Smith’s view, the natural survival instinct of the human being, coupled with a capacity for reason, make this inevitable. The number of improvident wastrels who cannot look after themselves and go to ruin is always relatively small.

In Smith’s view there are three types of revenue: the wages of labor, profit or the return on stock, and rent on land. In the world of economics these three classes play off against each other, in an environment created by governments, to produce the multifarious phenomena of the commercial world.

Along the way, Smith makes many interesting and trenchant observations, and sprinkles his text with stimulating and intriguing facts and surmises. For example, he notes that one of the effects of the prolonged expansion of wealth in a society over time is that its poorest members come to enjoy much better possessions than the poorest members of other societies, by virtue of the fact that the possessions of rich people tend over time to filter downward after their first owners are finished with them. Thus, in England, he says, many lower-income people live in quite nice buildings that once belonged to much more affluent people, and with nice, if old, furniture. He notes that one bed at a nearby inn was a wedding present to a former king of England! And one of my favorite of his surmises is on the superior nutritional value of potatoes over cereals. His evidence? That both the strong laborers at the bottom of English society, and the unfortunate but very attractive women who were driven to a life of prostitution there, tended to be Irish—and their superior physical attributes presumably had much to do with their nutrition back home!

He has much else to say about things as diverse as education, warfare, social morality, and nomadic societies. Whether you accept it all or not, it is all shrewdly observed and well thought out.

In addition, he is passionate about justice and about liberty. He is a true liberal in the best sense, and a sharp critic of clumsy, ham-fisted governments; of slack, ignorant landlords; and of rapacious, scheming businessmen.

All in all, not bad for a “bagman of free trade” (Marxist invective did indeed, it turns out, begin with Marx himself). Smith’s book has amply earned its place as volume 39 in the Britannica Great Books series, and is well worth the while of anyone seeking a liberal education.

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