An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations was published on this day (9 March) in 1776. I will resume my survey of Smith’s magnum opus in my next post; in the meantime, to mark this occasion, check out Ronald Coase’s 1976 essay on “Adam Smith’s View of Man” (available here or here), Maria Pia Paganelli’s previous tribute to Smith’s magnum opus, as well as the Smith installment of the late Professor Michael Sugrue’s legendary lecture series on “The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition”:

Bonus link: “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, first edition”

Bonus review: Below is one of the first reviews of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations; it was published on pp. 241-243 of vol. 19 of the Annual Register (1776, available here) and is attributed to Edmund Burke:

“The growth and decay of nations have frequently afforded topics of admiration and complaint to the moralist and declaimer: they have sometimes exercised the speculations of the politician; but they have seldom been considered in all their causes and combinations by the philosopher. The French economical writers undoubtedly have their merits. Within this century they have open the ways to a rational theory, on the subjects of agriculture, manufactures, and commerce. But no one work has appeared amongst them, nor perhaps could there be collected from the whole together, anything to be compared to the present performance, for sagacity and penetration of mine, extensive use, accurate distinction, just and natural connection, independence of parts. It is a complete analysis of society, beginning with the 1st rudiments of the simplest manual labor, and rising by an easy natural predation to the highest attainments of mental powers. In which course not only arts and commerce, but finance, justice, public police, the economy of armies, and the system of education, are considered and argued upon, often profoundly, always plausibly and clearly; many of the speculations are new, and time will be required before a certain judgment can be passed on their truth and solidity. The style of the author maybe sometimes thought difficult, but it must be remembered that the work is didactic, that the author means to teach, and teach things that are by no means obvious. We cannot better state the nature and plan of his work, than by laying before the reader the doctor’s own very short introduction.

“The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consists always, either in the immediate produce of that labor, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations. According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, there’s a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and conveniences for which it has occasion. But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances: 1st, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which labor is generally supplied and it; and, secondly, by the proportion between the number of those who were employed in useful labor, and that of those who were not so employed. What ever be the soil, climate, or extent the territory of any particular nation, the abundance or scant keenness of its annual supply must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances. The abundance or scant keenness of this supply to seems to depend more upon the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to work, is more or less employed in useful labor, and endeavors to provide, as well as he can, the necessaries and the conveniences of life for himself, and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm, to go hunting and fishing. . . .”