Excerpt from An Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Published in 1776

"The division of labor, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionate increase of the productive powers of labour."

Adam Smith (1723–1790) was one of the first people to write about what is now called economics, the way a people in a society make a living and spend money. Smith was a professor at the University of Glasgow in 1776 when he published his most famous work, An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, usually called simply The Wealth of Nations. His topic was how the British government could increase the wealth of the country by adopting certain policies and avoiding others. Smith believed in laissez-faire (pronounced less-say-FAIR, a French term meaning "free to do") economics, relying...