On ideas and Institutions: the wealth of nations or the wealth of the nation? The ideas of Adam Smith and Friedrich List on the development of capitalism - DOI: 10.4025/actascihumansoc.v30i1.5106

Abstract

This article establishes a comparison between two thinkers, whose analyses resulted in works that, each at his time, delineated the course of the world economy and unleashed debates concerning the economic policies adopted by different countries. Starting with the publication of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith in 1776, the era of liberalism began, a concept that guided in a predominant way the directions of the European economics, starting from the end of the 18th century and in the 19th century. Although it prevailed throughout the 19th century, liberalism did not escape objections. Already in the early 1800s, Germany’s Friedrich List presented another conception, which clashed directly with Adam Smith’s thought. With Germany as the center of his economical system, List, in his work The National System of Political Economy, criticized liberalism and his founder, affirming that such a conception applied to nations that had already achieved advanced industrial development, but it was not for less developed nations in economical terms, as was the case of Germany in the first half of the 19th century. From that moment, a debate began, which lasts until the current days.