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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:18:31 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
The CEA Report for this year ends its Overview with:
In 1776, as the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence,
the great economist Adam Smith wrote: "Little else is requisite to carry a
state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but
peace, easy taxes and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest
being brought about by the natural course of things."
Dugald Stewart says that Adam Smith presented the quote in a lecture that
he gave sometime around 1750-55. Stewart had a copy (now lost)written in
the hand of a secretary who left Smith's service before 1750. The quote
does not appear in the 1776 Wealth of Nations.
Two quick sources are:
Editor's Introduction to the Cannan edition: Adam Smith, An Inquiry into
the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Modern Library: New York,
1937, p. xliii.
It is also noted in: Ian Simpson Ross, The Life of Adam Smith, Oxford
University Press: New York, 1995, pp 107-8.
Paul Heise
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