Adam Smith Week Begins

Why Adam Smith people ask?  Well Adam Smith is still relevant today to the economics profession and much of the valuable lessons from his works need to be remembered and expanded.  The Adam Smith Institute in the UK works to ensure that Smith's work is understood in present context.  As the Adam Smith Institute explains free exchange was an important concept for Smith.


The productivity of free exchange

"Smith showed that this vast ‘mercantilist’ edifice was folly. He argued that in a free exchange, both sides became better off. Quite simply, nobody would trade if they expected to lose from it. The buyer profits, just as the seller does. Imports are just as valuable to us as our exports are to others.

Because trade benefits both sides, said Smith, it increases our prosperity just as surely as do agriculture or manufacture. A nation’s wealth is not the quantity of gold and silver in its vaults, but the total of its production and commerce – what today we would call gross national product.

The Wealth of Nations deeply influenced the politicians of the time and provided the intellectual foundation of the great nineteenth-century era of free trade and economic expansion. Even today the common sense of free trade is accepted worldwide, whatever the practical difficulties of achieving it."

Thus, it is fitting that our first event is a student debate on the issue of Free Trade vs. Fair Trade.  These issues are still unresolved and our students will argue, which of these views should dominate our trade policies today.