An absolute tome of a book that goes into detaiil about economics and economic policy for 18th century European countries. I read this book because it is, to my knowledge, essentially the foundational text on economics. I've heard many times about the idea of the 'invisible hand' that regulates markets, but to my surprise that phrase is used once in the whole book (maybe more I may have missed something). I came looking for some background knowledge and found much more. Smith has incredibly straightforward, insightful, and logical insights about economics that are nearly all revolutionary for the time. Bro hates on tariffs, colonies, and subsidies for manufacturing. In particular, he exposes tariffs as harmful to the country that imposes them, which seems like a crazy result to me because tariffs are still extremely common. Smith manages to take this incredibly global, total view of the economic impacts of policy that today's politicians still lack. He makes compelling cases for free market capitalism that I think have only one flaw: consumers don't always act in their interest and producers may manufacture demand. I can't fault Smith, writing in the 1700s, for not predicting the current economic landscape we live in, where (nearly) everyone in the UK has more than enough to eat but we still somehow don't have enough things. Anyway, regardless of my actual opinions on capitalism, Smith's work is a very good defence of it, and it's definitely worth reading for anyone who wants to think deeply about economics.