ADAM SMITH

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 593.

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UNIT 1

Fill in the correct word or word combinations from the list below.

a) society; b) the Establishment; c) taxes;

d) government; e) elections; f) democracy;

1. The new Prime Minister has formed a …… and has selected Ministers for the Cabinet.

2. In Britain's multicultural …… different social traditions and sets of values exist together and are generally respected.

3. It's important to almost everyone in Britain that they live in a …… .

4. The results of the …… to the Supreme Rada were reported in the mass media.

5. The government has increased the …… on petrol and alcohol.

6. Britain's public life is influence by …… , that is by persons in position of power and authority: the royal family, the House of Lords, the civil service, the law, the Church of England and the Armed forces.

Викладач: Прошкіна Ілона Олександрівна

E-mail: ilona.proshkina@gmail.com

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Significant year, signed in Philadelphia, professor of philosophy, a book entitled, intellectual thought, economic issues, discipline of economics, social phenomena, eighteenth Century, affluence of a nation, politician, government treasure, capital equipment, rational behavior, support laissez-faire.

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Photographic, date, history, declaration, professor, philosophy, nature, nation, intellectual, economic, problem, idea, discipline, economics, moral, formulate, physical, social, phenomena, ethics, theology, political, monumental, politician, accumulate, daily business, capital, machine, fund, finance, market, rational, formulation, theory, biologically, effectiveness, System, Intervention, separate, social science, individual, analyse, function.

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You don't have to have a photographic memory for dates to know that 1776 was a significant year in history. In that year, as we all know, the Declaration of Independence was signed in Philadelphia. Fewer people probably know that also in that year, a Scottish professor of philosophy published a book entitled An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. (This work is known universally as The Wealth of Nations.) This event represented a watershed in the development of intellectual thought on economic issues and problems. Although many of the ideas in the book weren't entirely new at the time, the philosophy professor, whose name was Adam Smith, is generally credited with being the father of the discipline of economics.

Professor Smith taught moral philosophy at the University of Glasgow. His specialty was "natural theology', which sought to understand and formulate the natural laws that governed physical and social phenomena. At that time the field of economics was a branch of the discipline of philosophy, which also encompassed, as it still does today, ethics and theology. The branch of philosophy that included economics in the eighteenth Century was called "political economy".

At the time Smith wrote this monumental work, the affluence of a nation was measured by many politicians in terms of the gold and silver accumulated in national treasuries. Smith pointed out that the wealth of nations was chiefly determined by people conducting their daily business rather than by the amount of gold and silver in a government treasury. He believed that the accumulation of capital equipment, such as machines and structures used by factories, was a vital determinant of wealth because it enhanced the division of labor. Smith argued that saving was critically important as a means of providing the funds to finance the accumulation of capital.

His background in natural theology led him to conclude that trade in unregulated markets would maximize the wealth of nations. The foundation for this belief was the notion of rational behavior. The main contribution of Adam Smith was the formulation of a theory of economic interaction.

Smith believed that rational behavior is biologically determined and that people have a tendency to pursue their self-interest. The belief in the effectiveness of a System of unregulated markets in maximizing well-being is a hallmark of Smith's views. Smith is often credited with supporting laissez-faire, a French term used to mean lack of government Intervention in business affairs. His views on the role of government were quite complex. In general, he believed that much government Intervention in markets did more harm than good.

Smith can justly be credited with establishing economics as a separate social science. He firmly established the individual as the main object of study and provided the first attempt to systematically analyse how the economy functions.