[Author’s Name]
[Institution’s Name]
Essay on History of Economic Thought
Adam Smith's Moral Philosophy is a story of humankind's evolution toward a constructive liberal society. Central to that process is the maturation and inculcation of social values. Institutional religion plays a key instrumental role in Smith's story of this evolutionary process. This piece traces the Smith's story of evolution of religion from superstition, to polytheism, to monotheism; the relationship of that evolution to the development of philosophy, and to the role of religion and philosophy in the emergence and development of liberal society. Smith's own evolving personal views with respect to religion and the deity are also considered.
Adam Smith's theory of economics established capitalism as the only moral economic system; his economic theories were born of his moral philosophy. He believed man to be basically self-interested, though capable of relating to others through sympathy. Smith's theory of economics developed from his ideas regarding the proper relations among men. As each person had a right to the product of their work, they also had a right to keep or trade it as they saw fit.
While Smith's moral philosophy's emphasis on sympathy and his economic theory's emphasis on self-interest seem to clash, they don't. Smith is always a proponent of justice. Never does Smith allow for any sort of theft or breach of respect. Thus, through capitalism and free trade, each transaction benefits each participant, while no one trades value for non-value, and no one demands what belongs to another, because people can sympathize with others. Smith points out the mutual benefit to city dwellers and farmers of trading manufactured goods for produce or money for either and other detailed examples of the mechanisms of capitalism in his 1778 work The Wealth of Nations (Rashid, 227).
"What rich nations can also afford to do - what they cannot help doing - is to distribute the benefits of wealth ever more widely............
