Adam Smith

Adam Smith and Alfred Marshall, two influential economists in different eras in time. One's Scottish in the 1700's and the other is from England in the 1800's. This is a summary about there lives and how they impacted the world of economics. Adam Smith was born 1723 in Scotland, he was a child genius. He attended the University of Glasgow when he was only 14 years old. He graduated early, only to transfer to Oxford University for 6 more years. He then returned to his homeland of Scotland to teach. He taught Literature, Logic, and Economics. At the age of 40 he began traveling Europe. He got to meet other great philosophers . By this time he was already famous, in 1959 he wrote the book "Moral Sentiments ". Would think that would be enough but Adam wasn't done. He wanted to accomplish more, he wanted to provide more insight in the matters of economics and political philosophy as well as ethics and moral philosophy. He began working on a book called "The Wealth of Nations". That book took him about 12 years to finish. But to Adam it was all worth it. It is said that in that book Adam Smith changed the face of economics. The book basically entailed people having the choice of where they wanted to work, when they wanted to work, and who they wanted to work for, in other words laborers choosing what's best for them. Adam Smith felt that if everyone wanted to better themselves and there situation, it could be done without interference of the government. He says "The natural effort of every individual to better his own condition, when suffered to exert itself with freedom and security, is so powerful a principle, that it is alone, and without any assistance...capable of carrying on the society to wealth and prosperity." Adam Smith also liked the idea of a free market place where everyone is competing freely I mean without any government help or interference. He liked the idea that distribution of commodities would be more efficient just by going on the interest of the society. He frowned upon governments trying to get a cut of the market's actions, he tried hard to show mainly the downside to the governments intrusion. Adam smith was not only the first to point out the efficiency of maximizing ones own self interest, but he was also the first to bring up "division of labor". Which is basically assigning of specific tasks to workers and resources. Some call it specialization. Smith believed that teamwork can get any job done faster and with better quality , than individuals working together. That theory is true still to this day. Everyone in the world at any job relies on teamwork. Alfred Marshall was born into a middle-class family in London and raised to enter the clergy. He parents wanted him to study theology at Oxford, but he defied his parents' wishes and studied mathematics at Cambridge. His interest in ethics and his concern for peoples improvement of their lives, motivated Marshall to study economics. His specialty was microeconomics, the study of individual markets and industries. Marshall used his background in mathematics to further support his theories. Rarely did Marshall attempt a statement or a position without expressing countless