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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...

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1. Systems And Terms
   1. What is laissez-faire capitalism?
   2. What is mercantilism?
   3. Why do economists still regard Adam Smith so highly?
   4. What is Keynesian economics?
   5. What were indentured servants?
   6. What was triangular trade?
   7. How were finished goods made before the Industrial Revolution?
   8. When was the New York Stock Exchange founded?
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   10. Who invented the assembly line?
   11. What is a robber baron?
   12. What is a Horatio Alger story?
   13. What was Black Tuesday?
   14. What was the New Deal?
   15. Why was the Sherman Anti-Trust Act important?
   16. What is e-commerce?
2. Money
   1. What was a piece of eight?
   2. What was rag money?
   3. What were wildcat banks?
   4. What were greenbacks?
   5. What were Continentals?
   6. When was the U.S. income tax system established?
   7. When was the Interstate Commerce Commission established?
3. Industries
   1. What was the National Bank Act?
   2. What is the Federal Reserve?
   3. How did the American tobacco industry begin?
   4. What were the Navigation Acts?
   5. What was the Cumberland Road?
   6. What was the Pony Express?
   7. How did the invention of barbed wire change the West?
   8. When was the biggest gold rush in U.S. history?
   9. What was the Comstock Lode?
   10. What is black gold?
   11. When did diamond mining begin in Africa?
   12. How did the American textile industry begin?
   13. How did Eli Whitney happen to invent the cotton gin?
   14. What was "king cotton"?
   15. How did the invention of the reaper change America?
   16. What were bonanza farms?
   17. How did the American cattle industry get started?
   18. What is Bessemer process?
   19. When did chain stores begin?
   20. When did department stores begin?
   21. How has the mail-order business changed since the nineteenth century?
   22. Who was Rosie the Riveter?
   23. Why was Ford's Model T so important to American history?
   24. How did plastic revolutionize modern life?
   25. How long ago was computer giant Microsoft founded?

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