Adam Smith: life, ideas and books

Life

Adam Smith was baptised in Kirkcaldy, Fife, in June 1723, though his exact birth date is not recorded. He studied at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, then lectured in Edinburgh from 1748. In 1751 he became a professor at Glasgow, moving to the chair of moral philosophy in 1752-53.

He resigned in 1764 to tutor the young Duke of Buccleuch on a tour of France, where he met Voltaire and the physiocrat Francois Quesnay. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society in 1767, became a commissioner of customs in Scotland in 1778 and served as Lord Rector of Glasgow University from 1787 to 1789. He died in Edinburgh in 1790.

Ideas

Smith argued in The Wealth of Nations (1776) that a nation's prosperity comes from the division of labour and from the free exchange of goods and services. Individuals pursuing their own interests in a competitive market, he held, often serve the public good without intending to, an effect he described with the image of an "invisible hand". He criticised mercantilist trade restrictions and monopolies, and argued for a government limited to defence, justice and certain public works.

His earlier book, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), grounds morality in sympathy and the impartial spectator, and shows that his view of markets sat inside a larger account of human conscience and social life.

Major works

• The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759).
• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).

Why conservatives read him

Smith is the standard starting point for the free-market tradition: arguments for competition, free trade, limited government and the discipline of prices all draw on him. Readers who are skeptical of central planning, tariffs and industrial policy return to his criticism of merchants and officials who claim to know what is best for the nation's economy. His moral writing also reminds conservatives that markets rest on habits of trust, prudence and fairness.