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Views of Adam Smith Adam Smith had many views that helped in making the world what it is today. I can’t imagine what the world would be like if there weren’t thinkers like Adam Smith. Our career as Pharmacists is a great example of this. What would we be working so hard for if we made the same amount of money as a trash man? He had many other views that were just as important. Adam Smith believed that a nation's wealth was not derived by how much they had in resources, or in an exchangeable commodity, but rather by the labor that its residents produce. "The annual labor of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences which it annually consumes." (Wealth of Nations, p. 1) He stated that a nation could increase the efficiency of the potential of its people by increasing these two aspects of the work force: (a) Skill, dexterity, and judgement with which labor is applied, and (b) Proportion of those employed in useful labor to those not so employed. For the first aspect, Smith noted that the best way to increase the efficiency of labor is the division of labor. The division of labor is the central factor in Smith’s theory of economic growth. Division of labor is the splitting of a large task into smaller tasks and then having one person be responsible for only one or two of the smaller tasks, which leads to an increase in productivity and stimulates the entire growth cycle, which increases the efficiency of the whole task. The division of labor and the accumulation of capital are what Adam Smith believed to be the driving forces of economic growth in any nation. He found that when the division of labor had broken down the production of almost any commodity into a series of simple operations it was more natural for tools and machinery to be invented that replace hand labor and expedite the entire production process, thereby increasing worker productivity. This increased productivity, combined with the growing capital stock to increase national output, enables a society to enjoy higher levels of consumption, resulting in a genuine rise in the â€Å"wealth of the nation† according to Smith. Adam Smith stated that the value of all things is based on the amount of labor that must be produced to gain it. He believed that the price of an object could be split into three parts: r... ...ner the market, and leave the consumers with a mediocre product. In response to tightened importation laws, he wrote that a strong foreign trade system would be the only way to provide good products to the English public. Adam Smith was accurately seeing the future of the world’s commerce. He saw that as producers tried to make more and more money, they were forced to cut corners. This, as a result, lead to products that were not as good as they should be. He knew that the way to improve product quality in Great Britain was to import goods from other counties. Adam Smith had many very important views. He had set ways that he thought things should have been and he spent his life explaining these views and trying to get others to see things as he did. Many people supported and accepted his views, while others completely disagreed with him. Whether or not you agree or disagree with his views, you have to admit that Adam Smith is very important even in the world today. Works Cited Bibliography 1. Heilbroner, Robert, Teachings From The Worldly philosophy, 1st ed. (Norton, 1997) â€Å"Wealth of the Nations†. Smith, Adam www.history.edu/adamsmith/views. (Accessed 4-1-02)