EconomicsBook · 1776
The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
Smith explains the division of labour with a pin factory, argues that self-interest coordinated by markets produces general prosperity, and also attacks merchants who conspire against the public and defends taxing the rich proportionately more. The invisible hand appears once.
Why you should read this
A founding text of modern economics, introducing ideas like division of labor and the invisible hand that still frame introductory economics courses today. It is long and heavily illustrated with eighteenth-century examples, so most readers today engage with excerpts rather than the full text.
- Field
- Economics
- Form
- Non-fiction
- Published
- 1776
- Themes
- Political EconomyEconomics
