People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. The reasons for writing a book such as Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations are many, and Smith seems to have had several in mind. His study traces the stages in thedevelopment of the modern economic system in an attempt to explain it, maps out theorigins of money, and finally tackles the issues facing the mercantile system whichcontrolled the society he lived in. In the process, he provides an exposition for his visionof a laissez faire economy, that is, capitalism as we now know it. More broadly, however,Smith’s account reveals his views on the nature of the human condition, and not a singletheme is explored without some observation being made upon human tendencies anddecisions. Most importantly, however, one finds that Smith’s views have often beeninterpreted in a very simplistic way by modern economists and used selectively asjustification for contemporary decision-making processes. Moreso, certain criticisms andreflections made by Smith, in particular, his scorn for businessmen, would appear tohave been (conveniently?) overlooked.Adam Smith wrote the Wealth of nations as a result of some eighteen years ofcontemplation. The book, which is concerned with the wealth of nations, that is, thestandard of living and the effect that economic prosperity has upon general opulence, isoutlined well in Adam Smith's own introduction. Smith wrote the book to explain how acountry like England, a commercial society, could prosper. To explain this fully, Smithfound it necessary to lay the very foundations for his contemporary political economy. Inone instance, Smith traces the economy back before the current commercialism andinterdependence, back through the feudal and manorial system of farming, back throughsimple nomadic agriculture, and finally, b...
