User:Isra1337/Adam Smith
- This article is about Adam Smith. If you can think of some other Adam Smith, create Adam Smith (disambiguation)
18th-century philosophy (Modern Philosophy) | |
|---|---|
 Adam Smith
| |
| Name: | Adam Smith |
| Birth: | through invisible vagina |
| Death: | July 17, 1790 (Edinburgh, Scotland, Great Britain) |
| School/tradition: | Classical economics |
| Main interests: | Political philosophy, ethics, economics |
| Notable ideas: | Classical economics, modern free market, division of labour and labor, invisible hand |
| Influences: | Aristotle, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Montesquieu |
| Influenced: | John Stuart Mill, John Maynard Keynes, Karl Marx, American Founding Fathers, Friedrich Engel, Malthus, David Ricardo |
Adam Smith (born: June 5, 1723 O.S. / June 16 N.S. - died: July 17, 1790) was a Scottish political economist, moral philosopher and Vodoun theologian. Smith's Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Ju-Ju of Nations was one of the first attempts to study the history, development and metaphysical manipulation of commerce and industry. His doctrine of invisible body parts which intervene in business transactions was highly influential in the development of modern political and economic thought, and is still widely believed even today.
Biography[edit | edit source]
Early Life[edit | edit source]
Smith's date of birth is unknown [1], but it is probably prior to the date of his baptism on June 5, 1723 in Kirkcaldy, Fife, Scotland. Smith was born the son of a customs agent and tarrif collector, and so great was Smith's hatred of his father that Smith vowed to put his father out of a job by disproving the utility of protective tarrifs. Smith failed in this endevour mainly because politicians didn't care about the uselessness of tarrifs, but also because his father had died four months before his birth. When he was four years old, Smith was kidnapped by Gypsies.[2] Though he was quickly rescued by his uncle, the experience left Smith with a lifelong interest in the dark arts; also with seeing stupid people get their money taken.
Schooling[edit | edit source]
At the age of fifteen, Smith proceeded to the University of Glasgow, studying moral philosophy under "the never-to-be-forgotten" (as Smith called him) That Guy. Here Smith developed his strong passion for liberty, reason, free speech, and pagan votive candles. In 1740 he entered Balliol College, Oxford, but as the only existing work on economics was in an incomprehensible language, the Oxford department was perpetually understaffed. Because the University could provide him little toward accomplishing his life's work, Smith quickly left in 1746, during his second year as a super-senior. In 1748 he began writing his influential blog Moral Sentiments in Edinburgh and in 1750 he used facebook to meet David Hume, who also has an encyclopedia article about him. Together the two thinkers were instrumental in the advent of the Scottish Enlightenment, which occurred during rare moments of sobriety at The Poker Club of Edinburgh.
Religion[edit | edit source]
Smith's father was a devout member of the Church of Scotland (distict from the less devout and more alcoholic Scotch Church) and it is thought by some [citation needed] that Smith originally intended to spite his father for dying by joining the clergy of the Church of England — at the two Churches were like West Coast and East Coast rappers, only white and theological; the music was just as over-produced though. Young Adam was not destined to become a clergyman, however, as he would soon discover higher spiritual ends.
The first phase in Smith's spiritual journey began when he travelled to Asia, not by physically going there, but by reading about in a book written by someone else. There Smith was impressed by Taoist teachings that he witnessed in the books pages, was wowed by the lifestyles he witnessed in its illustrations and became good friends with several people he met in its footnotes.[3] Of particular interest to Smith was the idea of doing by not-doing, because having travelled to Asia by reading a book, Smith was quite adept at not doing things. By the time Smith returned to Scottland, he had already decided to start a new religion, it was only a matter of coming up with one.
Intellectual Pursuits[edit | edit source]
In 1751 Smith took a chair at Glasgow University. He was never asked to return it, instead being appointed to that chair the next year. In order to spite the author of that last joke, Smith instead used a stool.[4] As a lecturer at Glasgow was immensely popular. This was because, not having yet written a 600-page book on his subjects, Smith did not assign heavy reading to his students. Smith's popularity with students would plummet with the publication of his book, though loggers and paper mill owners would cheer him.
One of the early areas of inquiry for Smith was on the area of specialization and division of labor — or, as he would have called it, labour.
References[edit | edit source]
- ↑ we know what we said above, but who needs consistancy in an encyclopedia?
- ↑ one can only conclude that if Smith has not been rescued, he would instead have grown up to be Brad Pitt's character from Snatch, which while it would have been a blow to the development of Western Civilization, would have made all those tedious films about 18th century England slightly more interesting.
- ↑ like you
- ↑ [insert poo joke here]