Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations
- Date
- 9 March 1776
- Category
- Economy & trade
- Region
- Scotland / Britain
- Era
- Early Modern
- Significance
On 9 March 1776 Adam Smith published An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, the founding text of classical economics.
Smith analysed how the division of labour, free markets and self-interest, coordinated as if by an 'invisible hand', could increase productivity and national prosperity. He criticised mercantilist controls and monopolies, argued for limited but purposeful government, and treated economic life as a system governed by discoverable principles in the empirical spirit of the Enlightenment. The first edition sold out within months. The work reshaped debates over trade, taxation and policy, influenced governments through the nineteenth century, and established political economy as a discipline whose ideas about markets remain central today.
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Empires active in 9 March 1776
- Qing Dynasty1636 CE – 1912 CE
- British Empire1583 CE – 1997 CE
- Spanish Empire1492 CE – 1976 CE
- Russian Empire1721 CE – 1917 CE
- Portuguese Empire1415 CE – 1999 CE
- Mughal Empire1526 CE – 1857 CE
Related economy & trade events
- Founding of the Bank of England27 July 1694
- Deindustrialisation of India under British rulec. 1800-1870
- Founding of the English and Dutch East India Companies1600–1602
- Britain wins the Asiento at the Treaty of Utrecht1713
- Royal African Company chartered, expanding England's slave trade1672
- Founding of the Bank of Amsterdam (Wisselbank)31 January 1609
Further reading
The wider story
The Silk Roads: A New History of the World
Best-selling world history told through the trade routes that moved goods, faiths and ideas.
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