• An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) founded modern economics as the science of wealth — its production, exchange and accumulation.
• Merit: put production and growth at the centre; founded a discipline.
• Critique: "wealth" was read too narrowly (material goods only) and too coarsely (mankind as homo economicus) — Carlyle's jibe that economics was a "dismal science" was aimed at this materialism; ethics and human welfare fell outside.