Smith, Adam

SMITH, ADAM. - Philosopher and economist, b. at Kirkcaldy (Scotland) on 5 June 1723, d. at Edinburgh on 17 July 1790. He entered the Glasgow High School at the age of fourteen, where he was a pupil of Hutcheson in the moral philosophy course; from the master's general principles he later developed his philosophical and economic thought, setting out, in accordance with his family's wishes, toward an Anglican ecclesiastical career; however, he abandoned theology to follow courses in natural sciences and philosophy, graduating in 1746.

He gave free courses at the University of Edinburgh, where he met Hume, of whom he remained a friend; in 1751 he was appointed professor of logic at the University of Glasgow and the following year professor of moral philosophy, a chair he held until 1763. His course, following in the footsteps of that of Hutcheson, who had preceded him, was divided into four parts: natural theology, ethics, civil and political law, political economy. Of these, only the second and the fourth, elaborated and expanded, were published by S., the one in 1759 (Theory of moral sentiments, London 1759), the other in 1776 (An inquiry into the nature and causes of wealth of nations, ibid. 1776). At the end of 1763 he left teaching to accompany the Duke of Buccleuch on a journey through Europe; with him he stayed for a long time in France, where he met the most eminent men of the time. Discussing with Turgot and Quesnay, founders of the French physiocratic school, S. deepened and broadened his economic knowledge, so much so that he was later accused of having taken from the physiocrats the most important part of his doctrine; but in the notes of his lectures on political economy preceding the journey, all the fundamental principles of the "Wealth of Nations" are already set forth (Lectures on justice, police, revenue and arms, delivered in the University of Glasgow by A. S., reported by a student in 1763 and edited with introduction and notes by E. Cannon, Oxford 1896). On his return to England in 1766 he retired for some years to Kirkcaldy, elaborating there his work of political economy, which, published in 1776, enjoyed rapid success. In 1778, in recognition of his merits, S. was appointed commissioner of customs and excise in Scotland, a post he held until his death. Posthumously, some of his small monographs of a philosophical and economic character, of lesser importance, were published (A. S., Essays, Dublin 1795).

With the Theory of Moral Sentiments, S. does not break away from the empiricism and moralism of Hutcheson and Hume: man is a moral being guided by the sentiment of sympathy, which nature uses to direct the destinies of humanity toward the happiness willed by Providence. The equilibrium between egoistic and altruistic impulses, brought about by sympathy, leads to harmony between one's own good and that of society. The analysis of the sentiment of sympathy forms the essential part of the work, but the initial error of wanting to deduce a moral law from the immediacy of sentiment gives S.'s reasoning a character of fragility and insufficiency.

S.'s fame and importance as an economist is linked to the Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, where, having demolished the sophisms of mercantilism, economics passes from fragmentary and empirical treatment to systematic and scientific treatment, so that its author can be considered the founder of economic science. The work has had more than one Italian translation, the most recent in 1945 (A. S., Ricerche sopra la natura e le cause della ricchezza delle nazioni, introd. by A. Graziani, Turin 1945, with bibl.). Fundamental characteristics of S.'s entire work are: utilitarianism: the individual is driven by innate sentiments to act economically in order to maximize material wealth; individualism: society is the sum of individuals, and the realization of individual interests is at the same time that of social interest; liberalism: the State must not intervene in the economic actions of individuals because it would disturb their natural harmony. Weak points are: the identification of the economic principle with egoism, which constitutes in the later classics the premise for the schematization of economic man and for the separation of economics from ethics; the insufficient vision of the ends of society and the State; the restriction of the object of economics to the sphere of material goods; the one-sided vision of the problem of value. S.'s merit remains that of having succeeded, with rigorous scientific method, in fusing into an organic and coherent body the fragmentary observations of his precursors and in deducing from a few premises a system of economic laws of such a kind as to have general validity. Moreover, the attentive observation of English industrial and commercial experience prevents S.'s work from falling into apriorism and schematism, imprinting on it a character of concreteness that would later be lacking in his successors.

Francesco Duchini