An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Natio

This edition contains generous selections from all five volumes of The Wealth of Nations, and places Smith''s inquiry into its historical, intellectual, and cultural context. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World''s Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford''s commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more. In addressing the nature and causes of the wealth of nations, Adam Smith made one of the most potent contributions to subsequent ideological history. In the west since the early nineteenth century he has been the patron saint of homo economicus. More recently, successive British governments have invoked his policy recommendations of free trade and laissez-faire to aid their extension of privatization and market effectiveness into areas such as health and education. Smith, however, not only viewed merchants and manufacturers with deep suspicion, but also tempered his celebration of a self-regulating market with a darker vision of the dehumanizing potential of a profit-oriented society. He did not write an economics textbook, but rather a panoramic narrative about the struggle for individual liberty and general prosperity in history, a subject he shared with other writers of the Enlightenment.