Adam Smith

Adam Smith (1723–1790) was a Scottish philosopher and economist and the author of The Wealth of Nations. Born at Kirkcaldy and raised by his mother, he studied under Francis Hutcheson at Glasgow and then at Oxford, leaving in 1746.

Edinburgh lectures from 1748 brought him David Hume's friendship, and in 1751 he took a Glasgow chair, later teaching moral philosophy. His Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) grounded morality in sympathy. In 1764 he resigned to tutor the Duke of Buccleuch in France, meeting Voltaire, then spent nearly a decade writing The Wealth of Nations, published in 1776.

Against mercantilism, it argued that national wealth came from labour, the division of labour and competition rather than gold and silver. From 1778 Smith served as a customs commissioner in Edinburgh, where he died on 17 July 1790; his executors destroyed papers unfit for publication.