Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The history of economic thought and its role
- 2 The prehistory of political economy
- 3 William Petty and the origins of political economy
- 4 From body politic to economic tables
- 5 Adam Smith
- 6 Economic science at the time of the French Revolution
- 7 David Ricardo
- 8 The ‘Ricardians’ and the decline of Ricardianism
- 9 Karl Marx
- 10 The marginalist revolution: the subjective theory of value
- 11 The Austrian school and its neighbourhood
- 12 General economic equilibrium
- 13 Alfred Marshall
- 14 John Maynard Keynes
- 15 Joseph Schumpeter
- 16 Piero Sraffa
- 17 The age of fragmentation
- 18 Where are we going? Some (very tentative) considerations
- References
- Index of names
- Subject index
5 - Adam Smith
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 22 September 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- 1 The history of economic thought and its role
- 2 The prehistory of political economy
- 3 William Petty and the origins of political economy
- 4 From body politic to economic tables
- 5 Adam Smith
- 6 Economic science at the time of the French Revolution
- 7 David Ricardo
- 8 The ‘Ricardians’ and the decline of Ricardianism
- 9 Karl Marx
- 10 The marginalist revolution: the subjective theory of value
- 11 The Austrian school and its neighbourhood
- 12 General economic equilibrium
- 13 Alfred Marshall
- 14 John Maynard Keynes
- 15 Joseph Schumpeter
- 16 Piero Sraffa
- 17 The age of fragmentation
- 18 Where are we going? Some (very tentative) considerations
- References
- Index of names
- Subject index
Summary
Life
Adam Smith was born in the small town of Kirkaldy (population about 1,500 at the time), on the eastern coast of Scotland, in 1723. The precise date of his birth is not known; we only know that it must have been a few weeks after the death of his father, a customs officer, which occurred in January, and before 5 July, the day of his christening. The young Smith had a placid childhood, raised by his mother Margaret with the help of relatives – a moderately well-to-do family of landowners – until 1737, when he moved to Glasgow in order to attend the local university. Among his teachers, his favourite was Francis Hutcheson, whom we met in the previous chapter (§ 4.9).
At the time, fourteen was not an uncommon age to enter university, which was in fact a sort of upper secondary school. The young Adam had already studied some Latin in Kirkaldy, and was immediately admitted to Greek lectures; he also took lessons in logic, which apparently followed the Aristotelian tradition but also included some recent developments (Descartes and Locke), in natural philosophy, in mathematics and physics (Euclid's Elements and Newton's Principia mathematica) and in moral philosophy (with Francis Hutcheson).
In the Scottish educational system, at all levels, the students paid their teachers course by course.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Wealth of IdeasA History of Economic Thought, pp. 115 - 154Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005