Adam Smith (June 1723 – July 17, 1790) was a Scottish moral philosopher and a pioneering political economist. One of the key figures of the intellectual movement known as the Scottish Enlightenment, he is known primarily as the author of two treatises: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759), and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776).

Published works

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations  was one of the earliest attempts to systematically study the historical development of industry and commerce in Europe, as well as a sustained attack on the doctrines of mercantilism; it also contained Smith's explanation of how rational self-interest and competition can lead to common well-being. Smith's work helped to create the modern academic discipline of economics and provided one of the best-known intellectual rationales for free trade and capitalism.

The Theory of Moral Sentiments

Smith asks that most fundamental question: Why do we regard certain actions or intentions with approval and condemn others? The Theory of Moral Sentiments establishes a new liberalism, in which social organization is seen as the outcome of human action but not necessarily of human design.

The Wealth of Nations

A vast and stinging critique of the crippling regulation of commerce and trade that was then current, it argued that if people were set free to better themselves, it would - "as if by an invisible hand" - actually benefit the whole of society. The book influenced thought and politics profoundly, and was one of the foundations of the era of liberal free trade that dominated the Nineteenth Century.