Question

How did Enlightenment philosopher Adam Smith impact society’s thinking?

A) He believed people were born as a blank slate for society to mold.
B) He encouraged people to move to another country if the social contract was violated.
C) He criticized the economic system of mercantilism in favor of a free market.
D) He supported an absolute monarchy as the best form of government

Answer 1

Answer: C) He criticized the economic system of mercantilism in favor of a free market.

Explanation: Adam Smith was an 18th-century Scottish economist, philosopher, and author, and is considered the father of modern economics. Smith's ideas–the importance of free markets, assembly-line production methods, and gross domestic product–formed the basis for theories of classical economics

Answer 2

Hi,Adam Smith is often identified as the father of modern capitalism. While accurate to some extent, this description is both overly simplistic and dangerously misleading. On the one hand, it is true that very few individual books have had as much impact as his An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. His accounts of the division of labor and free trade, self-interest in exchange, the limits on government intervention, price, and the general structure of the market, all signify the moment when economics transitions to the “modern.” On the other hand, The Wealth of Nations, as it is most often called, is not a book on economics. Its subject is “political economy,” a much more expansive mixture of philosophy, political science, history, economics, anthropology, and sociology. The role of the free market and the laissez-faire structures that support it are but two components of a larger theory of human interaction and social history.