Adam Smith
He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. (Smith, 1869, p. 28)

The above quote, taken from book four of Adam Smith's seminal work The Wealth of Nations, introduced the world to one of the most important concepts in modern economics, namely, the notion of an invisible hand guiding the market. Though the term "invisible hand" is mentioned only this one time in the entirety of Smith's work, it has become his most…...

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References

Smith, A. (1869). The wealth of nations. New York: Collier and Son.

Smith, V.L. (1998). The two faces of adam smith. Southern Economic Journal, 65(1), 2-19.

His lectures were a success as many eminent people of Edinburgh attended them and earned him a decent income.
During the course of his lectures on English literature, Smith perhaps realized that his real vocation was economics. Hence, addition to English literature, he started to deliver lectures in economics in 1750-51 in which he advocated the doctrines of commercial liberty, based largely on the ideas of Hutcheson. It was also during this period that Smith renewed his acquaintance with the philosopher, David Hume, sharing a close intellectual alliance and friendship that led to the emergence of the so-called "Scottish Enlightenment."

As a result of the success of his Edinburgh public lectures Smith was elected to the chair of logic at the University of Glasgow in 1751, which was lying vacant since the death of its previous occupant, John Loudoun, on November 1, 1750. Smith spent the next 13 years at the…...

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Works Cited

Butler, Eamonn, Dr. "Preface to 'The Theory of Moral Sentiments.'" London: 2001. Edinbugh: 1759. April 13, 2008 http://www.adamsmith.org/smith/tms-intro.htm

Gift, Richard E., and Joseph Krislov. "Are There Classics in Economics?." Journal of Economic Education 22.1 (1991): 27-32.

Peterson, Wallace C. "Capitalism." Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, 2007. April 13, 2008. http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761576596_1____2/capitalism.html#s2

Rae, John. Life of Adam Smith. London: Macmillan and Co., 1895. April 13, 2008.  http://www.econlib.org/library/YPDBooks/Rae/raeLS.html

Adam Smith's Economic Philosophy:

Just as Smith's moral point-of-view was ahead of his time with respect to ideas that others would popularize later, Smith presented matter-of-fact observations on the nature of work and the relationship between working people and society at large. More than one hundred years before Henry Ford revolutionized modern industry with his production line, Smith had explained the mechanism that accounted for its success.

Using the example of manufacturing nails, Smith illustrated that dedication to a specific task -and, in general, the divvying up of component tasks within any larger endeavor enabled one individual to produce more than 2.300 units per day, compared with a competent, but less specialized worker, who could produce only 800 per day, at best.

Smith eschewed the value of acquisitive success, or the accumulation of material wealth for its own sake, or for its value as a measure of self-worth, or as a means to…...

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References

Galbraith, J.K. (1958) the Affluent Society. Houghton Mifflin: Boston

Lerner, M. (1957) America as a Civilization: Life and Thought in the United States Today. Simon & Schuster: New York

Magill, F. (1961) Masterpieces of World Philosophy. Harper and Row: New York

Menand, L. (2001) the Metaphysical Club: A Story of Ideas in America. Farrar Strauss Giroux: New York

The roadways and other such necessities which are constructed by the government at the government's expense, and of which the private individuals are unable to finance, ultimately are predicted by Smith to come at higher and higher costs to the society.
SUMMARY & CONCLUSION

Smith, in his work, demonstrates how it is that self-interest is held at bay to an extent by rivalry of economy results in a prosperity that is widespread or that which is referred to by Smith a 'universal opulence' and is a situation in which the desire to produce more is driven by a desire for more consumption. Smith's view is that when restrictions on domestic trade decline that the society is able then to grow richer. Smith supports free trade to the extent that it is to the society's advantage as in the case where it can import goods at a lower cost than those goods…...

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Bibliography

Introducing Big Government (1999) Finance and Economics - the Economist 23 Dec 1999.

Smith, Adam (1776) an Inquiry into the Nature and Cause of the Wealth of Nations. Book Four - of Systems and Political Economy.

ADAM SMITH'S FEE MAKET CAPITALISM
Adam Smith's upheld the concept of free market capitalism at a time when the world did not trade in such complex environment. Each state was economically independent of the other. In saying that market capitalism could remain unregulated stem from the fact that at the time governments were too keen on taxing its nations. During the Gold system, a nation depended on the free flow of coinage to be able to trade. A stoppage in the free flow would mean there is hindrance to trade and hence a slump in the economy. On the adverse side if government provides free flow of the coinage system even to "foreigner" then it would mean to cut down barriers to trade and allow foreigners to trade freely with the local market thereby increasing competition to the level that local market would become suffocated. His rationale for this was that…...

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References

Wood, Ellen Meiksins. Unhappy families: global capitalism in a world of nation-states. Monthly Review July-August, 1999

Hodgson, Geoffrey M., Varieties of capitalism from the perspectives of Veblen and Marx.. Vol. 29, Journal of Economic Issues, 06-01-1995, pp 575(10).

UCHITELLE, LOUIS In Reality, a Model Of Flexibility Adjustments Made by Keynes What if Spenders Don't Spend? February 21, 1998

Adam Smith's Inquiry
Address to the First omen's Rights Convention" was a speech given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in order to raise voice against male chauvinism and religious bigotry and how it had been used to suppress women throughout history.

omen Rights in Eighteenth Century America

"Address to the First omen's Rights Convention" was a speech given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in order to raise voice against male chauvinism and religious bigotry and how it had been used to suppress women throughout history. The goal of this paper is to analyze the address given by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in the lights of broad and diverse academic resources.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton had made the commitment to improve the condition of women and elevate their status in American society. Her intellectual thinking and her ability to move out from the role of a house wife allowed her to be part of a group of women, who…...

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Work Cited

Baker, Jean H. Sisters: The Lives of America's Suffragists. Hill and Wang, New York, 2005.

Bradstock, A. And Rowland, C. Radical Christian Writings.Blackwell Publishers Ltd. 2002.

Mani, Bonnie G. Women, Power, and Political Change. Lexington Books, 2007.

To Smith, the natural world from which human beings emerged was not only insignificant and worthless, it was positively odious. He saw nothing to save, foster, or conserve about it. He thought people who lived in subsistence cultures were "so miserably poor they are frequently reduced to the necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts" (p. 93). Nature was a resource to be used to create wealth. Consumption was the ideal -- everybody able to buy whatever goods were needed and wanted. And civilized Europeans were the "ideal of humanity" (p. 96).

In America and other Western nations today, we have seen the world Smith envisioned come to pass with everything he pictured a reality. People from developing countries are amazed, for example, when they visit the…...

Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such offer" (Smith, 1776, p. 118-119).
The unintentional consequence is thee same as it was before: an increasingly respectable and thriving nation, one so much so that it is as if shaped by what Smith deems the "invisible hand," from which Smith thus concludes that "it is the necessary, certain propensity in human nature . . . To truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another" (Smith, 1776).

Also of significance is the interplay and conflict between self-love and benevolence by way of "sympathy" that would serve as the template on which all of subsequent economic theory would be founded. Consider the fact that most of economic theory is essentially a debate between the virtues of individualism and benevolent altruism by way of the state as intermediary. In short, economic theory concerns…...

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References

Aldrich, J. (Sept. 1999). Adam Smith, 1723-1790: Views of Adam Smith, 18th Century

Economist. Economic Review (UK), 17, 1, p. 34.

Canfield, J.V. (Ed.). (1997). Philosophy of Meaning, Knowledge, and Value in the Twentieth Century. New York: Routledge.

Fleischacker, S. (2004). On Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations: A Philosophical

Adam quotes that small republics have derived considerable revenue from profits of mercantile projects. Adam lists Republic of Hamburg, Venice and Amsterdam that had made profits from profits of a public wine cellar and apothecary's shop. Even Great Britain has said to make profit this way. Adam quotes "Postal Office as a perfect mercantile system"; the government advances the expense of establishing the different offices, and of buying or hiring the vehicles, and is repaid with a large profit by the duties upon what is carried. Adam believes that Postal system is perhaps the most successful example of mercantile system for the government. According to him the system involves no mystery in the business, the returns are not only certain, but immediate.
ADAM'S CONCEPT of FREE MARKET

The concept of free market raised by Adam is being thoroughly reviewed by all the leading economies of the world. He suggests, "The policy…...

(Smith, 1904)
Smith on Labor

The importance of the labor skills and the method of production of which the factor labor contributed the major share was the theme of the ideas of Smith. In the Wealth of Nations Smith argued that it was labor which created wealth and supplied the necessities - "The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labor, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations." (Smith, 1904) the fundamental factor being labor, it is the dexterity and the skill with which labor is employed that ultimately created the surplus called wealth. This surplus must be regulated by the market process and forces. "But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances; first…...

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References

Blaug, M. (1962) "Economic Theory in Retrospect" Richard D. Irwin.

Homewood, IL.

Brown, Vivienne. (2004) "Adam Smith Review" Routledge.

New York.

. . . The gains of both are mutual and reciprocal, and the division of labour is in this, as in all other cases, advantageous to all the different persons employed in the various occupations into which it is subdivided."
Therefore, the division of labor and human nature combine to produce a natural growth of the market, and the more people that are involved, the more opportunities for growth there will be as a result. In this regard, Smith adds that, "The greater the number and revenue of the inhabitants of the town, the more extensive is the market which it affords to those of the country; and the more extensive that market, it is always the more advantageous to a great number" (Book III, chapter 1).

This point is also made by McLean (2006) who reports, "After discussing the division of labour, Smith moves on to point out that it…...

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Works Cited

Clark, Charles M. (2002, June). "Wealth and Poverty: On the Social Creation of Scarcity."

Journal of Economic Issues 36(2): 415-421.

Foster, John B. (2002, January). "Monopoly Capital and the New Globalization." Monthly

Review 53(8): 1-5.

Wealth of Nations, According to Adam Smith
Adam Smith's seminal text The Wealth of Nations stands a tribute to the value of capitalism. Fundamentally its author espouses an optimistic faith in the essential rationalism of human society and human desires. He believes in the ability of human economic impulses to balance one another in a state of equilibrium of supply, costs, and consumer demand, if not interfered with by outside forces. Smith suggests that there is a famously invisible hand that guides market forces in a harmonious way that the state should not interfere with. The state should only enforce laws so conflict between human beings is kept at a minimum, and so the economy can function. The reason for the existence of this invisible hand is not purely generated by the economy, but by the nature of modern, human social life that Smith believes is, at is essence, rational…...

discovery of the New World and attendant new trade routes can certainly be described as momentous and significant, but the benefits of conquest and contact have been eclipsed by the inhumane, unjust, and hypocritical consequences thereof.
Three major aspects demonstrating Old and New World exchanges.

Discovery of new raw materials creating market demand and shifting patterns of trade, eg. Tobacco, cotton, corn.

Global trans-Atlantic slave trade creating free labor for the owners of the means of production and generating massive humanitarian disasters.

Decimation of indigenous populations throughout the Americas, representing genocide on unprecedented levels, justified by newfound sense of European superiority.

Five (5) specific groups that were affected by this event and two (2) examples for each cohort describing how they were affected.

A. Native Americans

Diseases

Forced migration and stripping of access to wealth.

B. Africans

Slave labor, brutality

2. Lack of access to wealth, resources, power, fruits of labor

C. Women in the colonies

1. Some experience greater gender division…...

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References

Forman-Barzilai, F. (2008). Adam Smith as a globalization theorist. Critical Review 14(4): 391-419.

Grolle, J. (2013). The "Columbian Exchange': How discovering the Americas transformed the world. Der Spiegel International. Retrieved online:  http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/a-923220.html 

London, C.R. (2013). When did globalization start? The Ecoomist. Sept 23, 2013. Retrieved online:  http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/09/economic-history-1 

Muthu, S. (2008). Adam Smith's critique of international trading companies. Political Theory 36(2): 185-212.

One of the most interesting ethical dilemmas that continues to plague ethicists and policymakers is the struggle to reconcile the need for free enterprise with the need for social justice. Another ongoing ethical issue is related to organizational culture, shifting social norms, and whether individual actors in organizations define the tenor of the organization as a whole. Neither of these genuine ethical dilemmas can be resolved simply. The first bears itself out in what often appear to be glaring violations of every ethical principle and logical construct. Free enterprise has helped to bolster economic growth and development, as well as to empower individuals to innovate and contribute to society. Yet free enterprise has not been truly free, with access to power and resources constrained by factors like race (Kerr & Walsh, 2014), gender (Tufarolo, 2015), and class (Shin, 2014). Of these variables, race and gender remain salient barriers to achieving…...

Adam Smith (Biographies, N.d.)
Smith's Biography

The Wealth of Nations

Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labor

Book II: Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock

Book III -- IV

Adam Smith was one of the most influential thinkers of the modern era. Smith's work laid the foundation for our modern economic system of capitalism -- he is sometimes referred to as the "father of capitalism." This analysis will cover his life and a brief biographical section, followed by his theoretical contribution to capitalism. Smith was far ahead of his time relative to political economy and argued that markets were an ideal form of resources allocation. However, in Smith's day, markets actually looked like small markets composed of buyers and sellers. Today, the concept of markets has become far more abstract and markets seldom resemble the form that Smith himself was familiar with. Although Smith is best known for…...

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References

Biographies. (N.d.). Adam Smith (1723-1790). Retrieved from Biographies:  http://www.blupete.com/Literature/Biographies/Philosophy/Smith.htm 

Brown, M. (2012). A Review: Adam Smith: An Enlightened Life. Review of Social Economy, 520-524.

Kaufman, H. (2001). What Would Adam Smith Say Now?: He would Like Much of What he Sees, But he would Also be Worried. Business Economics, 7-13.

Peaucelle, J. (2012). Rhetoric and logic in Smith's Description of the Division of Labor. European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, 385-409.

Marketing's Essence: Shaped by the Evolving Landscape

The body of literature on marketing has undergone a profound transformation over the decades, reshaping our understanding of its essence and its role in driving business growth. From the traditional focus on product-centric approaches to the contemporary emphasis on customer-centricity, the literature has provided a rich tapestry of perspectives that have enriched our comprehension of marketing's multifaceted nature.

The Transactional Paradigm:

Early marketing literature, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, portrayed marketing as primarily a transactional process, emphasizing the exchange of products and services for monetary compensation. This perspective, influenced by economists like Adam Smith and....

1. Mark Twain, a revered American author, once quipped, "Laziness travels so slowly that poverty soon overtakes him." This witty observation sparks an intriguing debate: is laziness merely a conscious choice, or is it an inevitable consequence of external pressures?

2. In the realm of psychology, laziness has been extensively studied, revealing a complex interplay between personal factors and environmental influences. Research suggests that both internal dispositions and external circumstances play a pivotal role in shaping our propensity towards inactivity.

3. The concept of laziness has been explored in various disciplines, from philosophy to economics. From Aristotle's....