The Origins of Economic Life

Most sixteenth and seventeenth century travellers in the west indies or africa assumed that all societies would necessarily have their own forms of money. Adam smith, on the other hand, was determined to overturn the conventional wisdom of his day. He insisted that property, money and markets not only existed before political institutions, but were the very foundation of human society. Smith's argument is worth laying out in detail because it is, as i say, the great founding myth of economics.