On the Wealth of Nations

What Hacker News says

1. hugh3Oct 2011
   While the Wealth of Nations was a great book for its time, I suspect that the time it takes to read it would be better spent reading four shorter economics books.

   I do recommend P. J. O'Rourke's book On The Wealth Of Nations, though, which summarises and discusses the whole thing in a hundred pages.

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2. billswiftJun 2010
   P J O'Rourke On the Wealth of Nations does an entertaining and fairly accurate job of "condensing" it. ISBN 0-8021-4342-3
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3. billswiftJan 2010
   "Basic Economics" by Thomas Sowell is the easiest to read, accurate introduction I have read.

   "Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life" by David Friedman requires a little more work.

   Several previous commentors have recommended Hayek's "Road to Freedom", but I think his last book, "The Fatal Conceit" covers more or less the same ground and is easier to read.

   "Software As Capital" by Howard Baetjer, Jr is interesting, but I wish he had discussed open source in it, since his analysis contradicts most open source theories and practice.

   A good Engineering Economics text may be useful.

   And I second the other commentors who suggested Jane Jacobs's "Economics of Cities" and "Cities and the Wealth of Nations" and O'Rourke's "Eat the Rich", his "On the Wealth of Nations", an analysis of Adam Smith's classic is also worth reading.

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4. JetSetWillyNov 2016
   This is completely inaccurate.

   England did not "take over" Scotland. There was no invasion or conquest, as in Ireland. The two countries voluntarily merged, scotland was represented in the British parliament and so on.

   The Wealth of Nations is not weitten about England. Smith was describing the society around him, in Scotland, many of the examples given in the book are directly taken from his everyday observations in the central belt of Scotland.

   At that time Scotland was in a tumult of intellectual and socialrevolution. Smith coukd look around and see the beginnings of an industrial society on his doorstep.

   A better explanation for why Smith and other enlightenment figures were in scotland and not so much England would be local cultural factors, such as scottish presbytereanism making for an incredibly high literacy rate in scotland as compared to england, or the great abundance of universities in scotland compared to England.

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5. knughitApr 2016
   Is it ironic? Europe's great modern wealth is socialist capitalism.

   The original canonical work on capitalism, Adam Smith's "On the Wealth of Nations" lays this out clearly.

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6. dredmorbiusNov 2012
   >> You made a blanket statement that multiple-basis currencies cannot and haven't existed

   > No, I said that there's no such thing as competing currencies. Having a single currency with more than one base has obviously been tried, but it didn't work.

   I still say flat out that you're mistaken. We have (and have had) multiple currencies in the world, used within a single area (quite often, especially during wartime), regionally, and worldwide. How do you deal with multiple currencies? Via exchange rates. These may be floated or decreed, but they exist. Dollars, Euros, Yen, and gold are all commonly used for current-day international transactions (with a strong preference generally for US dollars, though this may change). The dollar also has special standing as the preferred reserve currency, but again, this is largely a matter of convention, liquidity, and stability.

   Over historical time, there have been (usually local and smaller-scale, though not always) systems in which multiple currencies managed by multiple sovereigns circulated and were commonly used. Sometimes usage is specific to transaction types (e.g.: use currency A for large and multi-region transactions, use B generally for local/smaller transactions).

   On England's tri-metalism, Adam Smith discusses this at length in On the Wealth of Nations. The standards date to Roman times (copper basis), with silver emerging from the Saxon tribes, and gold from mainland Europe.

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