Monday, March 9, marks 250 years since the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. In the first clear statement of modern economic ideas, Smith criticized the then-popular fetish that limiting imports, promoting exports, and hoarding precious metal were the keys to prosperity. Smith’s ideas, therefore, stand as a permanent rebuke to people who favour state intervention in and guidance of economic activities. “Smith had a radical, fresh understanding of how human societies actually work,” the London, UK-based Adam Smith Institute notes in a brief biography about the source of its inspiration. Their relationship is wonderfully captured by Dennis C. Rasmussen’s The Infidel and the Professor: David Hume, Adam Smith, and the Friendship That Shaped Modern Thought, published in 2017.

Source: National Post March 09, 2026 16:19 UTC