Adam Smith, baptized on June 16, 1723, and passed away on July 17, 1790, was a pioneering Scottish economist and philosopher during the Scottish Enlightenment. Often regarded as "The Father of Economics" or "The Father of Capitalism," Smith authored two seminal works: The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759) and An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776), the latter commonly known as The Wealth of Nations. This work is celebrated as his magnum opus and represents the first modern exposition of economics as a coherent system and academic discipline.

Smith rejected attributing the distribution of wealth and power to divine will, instead focusing on various factors like natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental, and technological elements and their interplay. Among other economic theories, he introduced the concept of absolute advantage.

After studying social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and Balliol College, Oxford, Smith embarked on a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, leading to a collaboration with David Hume during the Enlightenment. He later secured a professorship at Glasgow, where he taught moral philosophy and wrote The Theory of Moral Sentiments. Throughout his later years, Smith held a tutoring position that allowed him to travel across Europe, meeting other intellectual luminaries of his time.

Smith's work laid the groundwork for classical free market economic theory, challenging the mercantilist policy of national market protection through import restriction and export maximization. His writings on the division of labour and how rational self-interest and competition can drive economic prosperity were revolutionary. Smith's approach to economics was controversial in his own time, with his style and methodology often satirized by contemporaries like Horace Walpole.