This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Wednesday, March 9th, 2011.

I'm Caleb Brown.

It was 235 years ago today that the field of economics was truly born. The wealth of nations, the great

work by moral philosopher Adam Smith, set the stage for social sciences in the centuries

that follow. Russ Roberts, a professor of economics at George Mason University,

an advisor to Cato's Center for Trade Policy Studies,

talks about Adam Smith and his important book.

This is the first of a two-part interview.

I think it's important to put the book in a perspective in a couple of ways.

One is, this was his second big book.

People mainly know of the Wealth of Nations.

His first big book was The Theory of Moral Sentiments, which he wrote before the Wealth of Nations

and revised it all through his life, and the last revision came out after the Wealth of Nations.

So the Wealth of Nations is kind of bracketed by Smith's other book.

The other perspective I think to think about is that there were lots of people thinking about

the issues that Smith was concerned about the role of self-interest, economic

activity, where wealth came from, the questions that Smith addresses and throughout

his work.

His was the first attempt, I would say, to attack those questions like an economist.

And Smith gets credit for being the father of modern economics or wrote the first economics book he didn't

there were many people before him who wrote on the topics that he wrote about what to

me makes his book and his work so exciting and still relevant today is that he was the first

...