Adam Smith

Adam Smith was a Scottish moral philosopher and economist, now considered the founder of modern economics. He was a professor of moral philosophy in Glasgow before publishing The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and then, after twelve years of work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) — a founding document of economic liberalism. Smith was a friend of David Hume and a member of the Scottish Enlightenment; his work was far more nuanced about the limits of markets than his later admirers have always acknowledged.