Adam Smith’s Enlightened World

Commerce, morality, equality, the rule of law, and the role of government… Welcome to the world of Adam Smith.

What can we learn about our own world from Smith? Join the workers in an 18th century pin factory to find out more…

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Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: Always Contemporary

In this final episode, Munger assesses Adam Smith’s enduring ideas—the moral authorization of commerce, division of labor, emergent order—and confront where his optimism breaks: how democratic politics and business fuse to create monopoly privilege. The result is a maintenance‑intensive commercial order that needs competition defended, not assumed.

Adam Smith’s Book on Jurisprudence: An Appreciation of The Wealth of Nations

This year marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations .  The Wealth of Nations was literally world-changing.  It was one of the first systematic explorations of what we now call economics, and the breadth of the work is global.

Multimedia Resources

An Animal That Trades

A five-part short video series on the life and contemporary relevance of Adam Smith.

#WealthofTweets by Sarah Skwire and Janet Bufton

Commentary

Essays on Smith

Speaking of Smith Posts

Educational Resources

AdamSmithWorks Lesson Plans

Original, classroom-ready activities to use with your students TODAY.

Invisible Hand Toolkit

Explore the most famous metaphor in economics with our collection of original resources for you and your classroom. 

Full Texts

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

The Theory of Moral Sentiments, Smith’s first and in his own mind most important work, outlines his view of proper conduct and the institutions and sentiments that make men virtuous. He develops his doctrine of the impartial spectator, whose hypothetical disinterested judgment we use to distinguish right from wrong in any given situation. 

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

First published in 1776, the year in which the American Revolution officially began, Smith’s Wealth of Nations sparked a revolution of its own. In it Smith analyzes the major elements of political economy, from market pricing and the division of labor to monetary, tax, trade, and other government policies that affect economic behavior. Throughout he offers seminal arguments for free trade, free markets, and limited government.