The Wealth of Nations

The Wealth of Nations was published in two volumes by Adam Smith on March 9, 1776 (books I–III are included in the first volume, and books IV and V are included in the second).

"We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate [...] Masters, too, sometimes enter into particular combinations to sink the wages of labour even below this rate. These are always conducted with the utmost silence and secrecy till the moment of execution; and when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people". In contrast, when workers combine, "the masters [...] never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combination of servants, labourers, and journeymen."

The Wealth of Nations was published in two volumes on 9 March 1776 (with books I–III included in the first volume and books IV and V included in the second), during the Scottish Enlightenment and the Scottish Agricultural Revolution. It influenced several authors and economists, such as Karl Marx, as well as governments and organizations, setting the terms for economic debate and discussion for the next century and a half. For example, Alexander Hamilton was influenced in part by The Wealth of Nations to write his Report on Manufactures, in which he argued against many of Smith's policies. Hamilton based much of this report on the ideas of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, and it was, in part, Colbert's ideas that Smith responded to, and criticised, with The Wealth of Nations.

The Wealth of Nations was the product of seventeen years of notes and earlier studies, as well as an observation of conversation among economists of the time (like Nicholas Magens) concerning economic and societal conditions during the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and it took Smith some ten years to produce. The result was a treatise which sought to offer a practical application for reformed economic theory to replace the mercantilist and physiocratic economic theories that were becoming less relevant in the time of industrial progress and innovation. It provided the foundation for economists, politicians, mathematicians, biologists,[citation needed] and thinkers of all fields to build upon. Irrespective of historical influence, The Wealth of Nations represented a clear paradigm shift in the field of economics, comparable to Sir Isaac Newton's Principia Mathematica for physics, Immanuel Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason for philosophy, Antoine Lavoisier's Traité Élémentaire de Chimie for chemistry, or Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species for biology.

Five editions of The Wealth of Nations were published during Smith's lifetime: in 1776, 1778, 1784, 1786 and 1789. Numerous editions appeared after Smith's death in 1790. To better understand the evolution of the work under Smith's hand, a team led by Edwin Cannan collated the first five editions. The differences were published along with an edited sixth edition in 1904. They found minor but numerous differences (including the addition of many footnotes) between the first and the second editions; the differences between the second and third editions are major. In 1784, Smith annexed these first two editions with the publication of Additions and Corrections to the First and Second Editions of Dr. Adam Smith’s Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, and he also had published the three-volume third edition of the Wealth of Nations, which incorporated Additions and Corrections and, for the first time, an index. Among other things, the Additions and Corrections included entirely new sections, particularly to book 4, chapters 4 and 5, and to book 5, chapter 1, as well as an additional chapter, "Conclusion of the Mercantile System", in book 4.

The fourth edition, published in 1786, had only slight differences from the third edition, and Smith himself says in the Advertisement at the beginning of the book, "I have made no alterations of any kind." Finally, Cannan notes only trivial differences between the fourth and fifth editions—a set of misprints being removed from the fourth and a different set of misprints being introduced.