From 1776 to 2026: Adam Smith's lessons for the global economy

LONDON, March 8 - Tax the rich. Trash the tariffs. End monopolies. Read more at straitstimes.com.

LONDON, March 8 - Tax the rich. Trash the tariffs. End monopolies.

Such are the rallying calls of many of today's most heated economic debates. They could also come straight from the pen of revered economist Adam Smith, hailed by some as the "father of capitalism" and others as an early progressive.

Smith knew nothing of Donald Trump or tech billionaires when he railed against trade protectionism and extreme affluence in "The Wealth of Nations", the best-read economics book in history, which celebrates its 250th birthday on Monday.

"It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy," the Scot wrote in the seminal work, for example.

"Would it be a reasonable law to prohibit the importation of all foreign wines, merely to encourage the making of claret and burgundy in Scotland?" he adds.

The foundational text of classical economics was published on March 9, 1776, the same year as the U.S. Declaration of Independence, 13 years before the French Revolution, and amid the early convulsions of the Industrial Age.