Adam Smith Quotes
It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.
Smith, Adam. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Vol. 2, W. Strahan and T. Cadell, 1776, p. 4.
The majority of the Supreme Court has voted 5-4 that a corporation cannot be limited in the amount of money it spends on an election campaign as curtailing the money that is spend is tantamount to curtailing the amount of speech and spending money to elect a candidate is a form of political speech. Stevens made a major distinction between money and speech and challenged the logic that conflated the two. The nation was polarized on this issue, with liberals and conservatives on both sides of the question.
Note that although the industrial revolution was beginning, the value of factories, inventory, machines, and raw materials were not yet recognized by some of the leading intellectuals of America. The perspective was totally agricultural.
Adam Smith FRSA was a Scottish economist, philosopher as well as a moral philosopher, a pioneer of political economy, and a key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment, also known as ''The Father of Economics'' or ''The Father of Capitalism''. Smith wrote two classic works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as The Wealth of Nations, is considered his magnum opus and the first modern work of economics. In his work, Adam Smith introduced his theory of absolute advantage.
