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Adam Smith The Wealth Of Nations

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The book I chose to evaluate was “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith. It was written in 1776, during the time when America was writing a declaration of independence. Smith wrote the book because he wanted to upend the mercantile system. The message I received in “The Wealth of Nations” by Adam Smith is that the government has no business in economics, this makes sense to me because the mercantile system was created by a European government around the 16th century. Smith wrote the book describing how economics is one of those things that would be so much better if the government didn’t try to control it. Basically, the book promotes free enterprise. Free enterprise is defined as an economic system in which there is open competition between …show more content…

He even writes in chapter four of book one, “He supplies the far greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the produce of his own labor, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men’s labor as he has occasion for.” He goes on to mention that if everyone traded their extra materials away, society would grow to be a commercial society. Book three is a consideration about how Great Britain’s society socially evolved to show how their economy evolved as well. Smith says that they evolved with hunting, gathering societies, and progress through agricultural stages to become a state international business. In book four, Smith reprimands mercantilism. Smith didn’t like the fact that it combined value and wealth with precious metals. To make a point that mercantilism isn’t as great as others make it seem, Smith introduced his idea of gross domestic product, which is essential in today’s economics. Book five is the final book in “The Wealth of Nations.” In it, Smith describes the roles the government should have in the economy. He believed that the government should provide defense, justice, education, and more. To support this claim, he wrote, “According to the system of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend to... First the duty of protecting society from violence and invasion of other independent societies, secondly the duty of...exact administration of justice, and thirdly, the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public

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