Why do economists still regard Adam Smith so highly?
Many businesspeople continue to value the economic views of Scottish philosopher Adam Smith (1723–1790) because they agree with his philosophy of opposing government involvement in economic matters. Smith opposed mercantilism, an economic system that stresses the goals of the national government rather than the individual, which developed in Europe as the feudal system (a social system based on strict class structures) declined at the end of the Middle Ages (c. 450–c. 1500). Mercantilism was the main economic system in Europe during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. This system required the national government to strictly control businesses. In his book Wealth of Nations (1776), Smith analyzed the factors that caused some nations to be wealthy while others were not. He asserted that the true wealth of a nation rests…
