Adam Smith made two positive claims about slavery in the context of developing economies. First, Smith argued that slavery was in general highly inefficient. By his account, the net product under freedom is 12 times larger than under slavery. Second, he observes that, despite its inefficiencies,...

What accounts for the differences in the “wealth of nations”; that is, the differing levels of opulence across countries? Adam Smith's argument is as relevant today as it was in his time. On the economic side, his answer is well-known: the division of labor, the role of capital accumulation,...

Most people in medieval Europe lived at subsistence in a violent feudal world. Adam Smith explained both the long-term stability of the feudal system and how the towns escaped this violence trap through political exchange that fostered their ability to enter long-distance trade, significant...

The purpose of this short paper is to demonstrate that in the modern era Adam Smith scholars make a surprising variety of claims about the “main point” of the Wealth of Nations. In these notes, I collect a range of statements asserting the main point and arrange them by categories. Most...

Adam Smith proposed three contradictory theories of the British Empire in the Wealth of Nations. The first view holds that the empire was created for merchants eager to monopolize the colonial trade. Smith concludes that “Great Britain derives nothing but loss” from the colonies. In the...