The Wealth of Nations

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 February 2015

⏱️ 47 minutes

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Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss Adam Smith's celebrated economic treatise The Wealth of Nations. Smith was one of Scotland's greatest thinkers, a moral philosopher and pioneer of economic theory whose 1776 masterpiece has come to define classical economics. Based on his careful consideration of the transformation wrought on the British economy by the Industrial Revolution, and how it contrasted with marketplaces elsewhere in the world, the book outlined a theory of wealth and how it is accumulated that has arguably had more influence on economic theory than any other.

With:

Richard Whatmore Professor of Modern History and Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews

Donald Winch Emeritus Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex

Helen Paul Lecturer in Economics and Economic History at the University of Southampton

Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know.
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0:43.2	UK slash radio 4. I hope you enjoy the program.
0:47.0	Hello at the height of the Enlightenment in the second half of the
0:50.1	18th century few places in Europe could match the flood of intellectual
0:54.1	accomplishment that came from Scotland. The philosophy of David Hume and James Hunt's
0:58.5	fundamental discoveries about geology are just two examples, and Edinburgh and
1:02.4	Glasgow boasted the two greatest
1:04.4	universities in Europe. But the most celebrated figure of the Scottish Enlightenment
1:08.3	today is Adam Smith, the moral philosopher and economic theorist who in 1776 published a book that's become the
1:16.1	foundation of modern economics. Its full title is An Inquiry into the Nature and
1:21.0	Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Smith examines the evolution of
1:24.6	human civilization and the ways in which the actions of individuals affect
1:29.0	entire societies. The wealth of nations argues passionately against the regulation of markets.
1:34.0	With me to discuss Adam Smith and the Wealth of Nations are Richard Watmore, Professor of Modern
1:39.0	History and Director of the Institute of Intellectual History at the University of St Andrews,
	...

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