The Wealth of Nations A Revolutionary Work on Economics

Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations is one of history’s most revolutionary works on economics, with basic principals that remain applicable to today’s business world. Smith wrote it in an effort to transform the way Europeans created and sold products and to promote the concept of a free market. The book was a catalyst for change, quickly spreading throughout the world new and revolutionary ways to improve the financial systems of Europe by making them more productive. It promoted the concept of specializing in products that are conducive to the resources and skills of a country. This period, known as the Industrial and Agricultural Revolution, was marked by an economy that had both positive and negative aspects. The†¦show more content†¦The city of Manchester is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Before the Industrial Revolution, Manchester was a small and average European town, but once the revolution began, it quickly rose to become an industrial m ecca, due to its perfect conditions for cloth manufacturing. Manchester grew quickly to a population of 400,000, with residents cramped into a small space fast being taken over by manufacturing. Due to overpopulation, the working class had essentially no space in which to live, and the little housing they did have was full of grime and disease. They were destined to either live in the slime-filled streets or luckily own what we now would call a â€Å"one-room hut.† These buildings cannot even be referred to as homes, but instead were what we today would envision in third-world countries. They had dirt floors and were described as looking uninhabited. Their buildings were even used as pigpens on occasion. Because the streets were unpaved, they were filled with â€Å"stagnant urine and excrement,† and it could not be washed away by the rain. This led to a huge breakout of diseases such as cholera and tuberculosis throughout the working class (Engels: Manchester, pg 1- 2). Smith’s The Wealth of Nations was a roadmap for progress, but Smith did not advocate in his book the resulting use of child labor. The regular day in the life of a child factory-worker was one of the most horrific thingsShow MoreRelatedEconomic Systems: Capitalism, Communism and Socialism814 Words   |  3 PagesEconomic Systems 04/22/2014 Throughout history, nations or regions have supported different economic systems. Economic systems control the political economy, markets, consumer and public economics, national income, natural resources and other aspects. The economic systems lead the country towards its flourished and depraved situations. 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