Everything for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money or in gold and silver, but in what money purchases.No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, cloath and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged.
Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations
Smith was the first modern economist. He published on the eve of the American Revolution, and greatly influenced the Colonials against British Imperial economic tyranny. He and the Revolutionaries applied his theory to
- Mercantilism, the hypothesis that the only purpose of colonies and international trade is to enrich the home country, and especially the already rich there
- Physiocracy, the hypothesis that the wealth of nations derived solely from the value of "land agriculture" or "land development" and that agricultural products should be highly priced for the benefit of aristocratic landowners
- Taxation without representation
- The Navigation Acts, requiring ships from the Colonies to land in England, no matter what their actual destinations
- The Stamp Act
- Tea
Welcome to Boson Harbor. Notice that it has no ‘T’ in it. Please help us keep it that way.
My son, Certifiable Genius