Enlightenment
Adam Smith
1723–1790
“The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations ... has no occasion to exert his understanding, or to exercise his invention.”
Adam Smith, Scottish moral philosopher and professor at Glasgow, wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments and . The latter treats labor as the source of national wealth and the real price of commodities. Division of labor multiplies output. It also risks dulling the individual worker who repeats a few simple operations for a lifetime. Smith analyzes markets, rent, profit, and wages without reducing commercial society to simple greed. Marx and Mill both start from ground he cleared.
In the Conversation
2 of the Great Ideas
Politics
Wealth
The division of labor, not gold or land, is the true source of national wealth; self-interest channeled through markets serves the public good.
Labor
Labor is both the source of national wealth and the real price of all things; the division of labor enriches society but tends to impoverish the spirit of the individual laborer.