Although largely absent from modern accounts of the Industrial Revolution, watches were the first mass produced consumer durable, and were Adam Smith's pre-eminent example of technological progress. In fact, Smith makes the notable claim that watch prices may have fallen by up to 95 per cent...

Adam Smith war nicht nur der wichtigste Vordenker von Kapitalismus und Marktwirtschaft, sondern auch ihr erster grundlegender Kritiker. Das zeigt Gerhard Streminger in seiner fulminanten, aus den Quellen gearbeiteten Biographie des "ökonomischen Luther", wie Friedrich Engels Smith einmal...

One does not read very far into Smith's work without encountering apparent inconsistencies. Perhaps the most troubling arise in the discussion of the corn trade, where, contrary to his well-known principle that trade protection and subsidies draw to the favored industry "a greater share of the...