Part 1
Adam Smith (AD 1723-1790) was born in Scotland and later attended Glasgow University (1737-1740). After attending Oxford University (1740-1746) in England, he returned to Scotland. Two years after his return, Smith moved to Edinburgh and delivered lectures on rhetoric. In 1751 he was initially appointed Professor of Logic at Glasgow and was then transferred to the Chair of Moral Philosophy in 1752.
Smith published The Theory of Moral Sentiments in 1759. Then in 1776, the same year the Declaration of Independence was adopted in the United States, Smith published The Wealth of Nations. He was a moral philosopher who also studied economics.
Today, Adam Smith is known as “The Father of Economics” and he is highly regarded as the greatest economist of all time. His writings support free market capitalism while identifying human selfishness as a driving economic force. Smith’s takeaway for us is that economic self-interest is best balanced by benevolence and not by violence.
~Boethius~