It’s Adam Smith Week! Hip, Hip Hooray for the Invisible Hand!

At the College of Charleston’s School of Business, it’s Adam Smith Week (March 16-20, 2015). Faculty and students are staging a series of activities celebrating and exploring the concepts and contributions of the 18th century Scottish philosopher and pioneer in political economy. In 1776, Smith published The Wealth of Nations, a revolutionary work on economics that argued a nation’s wealth is best measured by its productivity (or gross domestic product).

The Wealth of Nations also discussed the advantages of division of labor, and perhaps most famously, explored the concept of “the invisible hand,” which posited that an economy functions best for everyone when all actors are encouraged to pursue their own self-interest.

Presented by the Initiative for Public Choice and Market Process, Adam Smith Week began with a panel discussion on “Productive and Unproductive Entrepreneurship,” and will end with a lecture on the benefits of majoring in economics. Find out more here.