270 - SMITH, Adam, and ROUCHER, Jean-Antoine. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations.

SMITH, Adam, and ROUCHER, Jean-Antoine. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Paris: Chez Buisson, 1790–91. In-12 (19.5 x 12.5 cm), tan sheepskin, smooth spine, pasted-on title label, fine gilt fleurons. Contemporary binding. 4 vols.: xi-570 pp. - 312 pp. - 602 pp. - 591 pp. Scuffing on the end caps. First edition of the translation by the poet Jean-Antoine Roucher of Adam Smith’s seminal work, based on the fourth English edition, published in 1786, ten years after the original. The volume of notes by Condorcet mentioned in the title was never published—nor, it seems, ever written. Two other complete translations of the work had appeared previously: the first, anonymous, in 1778–1779; the second, by Jean-Louis Blavet, in 1781. This work is considered the first and most important treatise on modern economic thought. In it, Smith presents his analysis of the origins of the recent prosperity of certain countries, such as England and the Netherlands. He develops economic theories on the division of labor, the market, money, the nature of wealth, the “price of goods in labor,” wages, profits, and the accumulation of capital. He examines various systems of political economy, particularly mercantilism and physiocracy. He also develops the idea of a natural order, the “system of natural liberty,” resulting from individual self-interest being resolved into the general interest through the workings of free enterprise, free competition, and free trade. *The Wealth of Nations* remains to this day one of the most important socio-political-economic works in this discipline. It is the founding text of classical economic theory and, according to some, of economic liberalism. A fine copy.