SMITH, Adam (1723—1790), Scottish political economist and moral philosopher, whose writings had a profound influence on economic thought. The founder of the classical school of political economists, he is best known for his monumental The Wealth of Nations (1776). This work, which is the preeminent EXPRESSION of the principles of a laissez-faire economy—or commercial society, as Smith called it—holds that a government should only maintain law and order and impose minimum legal restrictions on trade and prices.

亚当·斯密（1723年至1790年），苏格兰政治经济学家和道德哲学家，他的著作对经济思想产生了深远影响。作为古典政治经济学学派的创始人，他最著名的是他不朽的《国富论》（1776年）。该著作是对放任自由的经济学原则---或如斯密所称之为商业社会的卓越表达---即政府只应该维护法律和秩序，并对贸易和价格强制执行最低限度的法律限制。

Principal Work.  The Wealth of Nations, whose full title is An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, begins its argument with a discussion of the division of labor as a principle of production, approving its effectiveness in enhancing the standard of living but criticizing its moral and intellectual effects on the population.

主要工作。《国富论》，它的全名是《国民财富的性质与原因的研究》，以劳动分工为产生原则的讨论开启了其论证，在提高生活水平方面赞成其有效性，但批评它对人们道德和智力的影响。

Smith raises the question of the distribution of the product among the people, resorting to what came to be known as the law of supply and demand to explain the level of wages, profits, rent, and of prices generally. In doing this, he separates the discussion of prices and distributive shares from the traditional notion of the just-as in the term “just price”—and orients it instead upon the “natural.” Thus the natural price is that dictated by fluctuations in the market.

斯密提出了人群中产品分配的问题，运用后来被称为供求规律的法则来解释工资、利润、租金和一般的价格水平。这样做，他就将价格和分配份额的讨论从“公正价格”术语中的传统概念分离出来---并且将其定位于“自然的”。这样，自然价格就是由市场波动决定的。

Smith also analyzes the history of Europe as a response to the promptings of self-interest or, more generally, as a result of repeated human surrender to sentiment or passion. He does so partly to explain how Europe developed mercantilist capitalism through the feudal Middle Ages and partly to illustrate the mechanism of history for the sake of promoting future progress. See also MERCANTILISM.

作为对自我利益激励的回应，或者更普遍地，作为人类对感情或激情重复屈服的结果，斯密还分析了欧洲的历史。他这样做，在某种程度上是为了解释欧洲是如何从封建的中世纪发展为重商主义的资本主义，并在一定程度上，为促进未来的进步说明了历史机制。

Finally, Smith speaks of public policy with respect to the administration of justice, education, religion, and other problems, all in the section (Book 5) that deals with public expenditure and revenue—“public finance.”

最后，斯密讨论了有关公平、教育、宗教和其它问题管理的公共政策，在该部分中（第五篇）所有这些都涉及到公共支出和收益---“公共财政”。