Analysing the rhetorical structure of (An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of) The Wealth of Nations (Smith WN) and the political context of its publication, we make the case for the central importance of its Book V, “Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth”, which tends to be...

In his History of Economic Analysis, Joseph Schumpeter (Schumpeter 1954a) dismissed Adam Smith's Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (Smith 1976) in a blunt and ad hominem manner. We argue that Schumpeter's assessment resulted from his failure to appreciate the rhetorical structure of...