Jean-Jacques Pluchart
In a collective work entitled ‘Nouvelles réflexions sur la richesse des Nations. Les leçons de Turgot et de Smith’ (‘New Reflections on the Wealth of Nations. The Lessons of Turgot and Smith’), published in 2025, the Club Turgot examined the legacy of Adam Smith’s ideas in recent works on political economy written in French. Les leçons de Turgot et de Smith’, published in 2025, the Club Turgot examined the legacy of Adam Smith’s ideas in recent French-language books on political economy. The Turgot Club’s conclusion was that the ideas put forward in Smith’s seminal work, published in 1776 and entitled ‘An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations’, were still relevant today.
In 1776, England and France were in transition from an agricultural society to a pre-industrial world. These countries were entering an era of institutional, economic and social transformation. At that time, Smith observed that the drivers of prosperity did not stem primarily from land, gold or the state, but rather from the organization of labour. He argued that, through the division of labour, the manufacture of goods became more efficient. He cites the well-known example of a worker who, on his own, could only make a few pins a day, whereas a production line organized according to the division of labour could make thousands. This pioneering vision remains relevant in most industries today. Today, global supply chains, made up of digital platforms and specialized companies, operate on the same principle.
Furthermore, the specialization of suppliers and subcontractors fosters technical and organizational innovation. The ‘invisible hand of the market’ ensures coordination between producers and consumers, who, while pursuing their own particular interests, contribute to the public interest through competition and the dual interplay of supply and demand. Today, this market mechanism is even more efficient thanks to Artificial Intelligence and new information and communication technologies.
However, Adam Smith opposes uncontrolled market freedom. He entrusted the state with the roles of regulating competition, guaranteeing the right of co-ownership, punishing price manipulation, and defending the domestic market against external threats. In particular, he opposed the formation of monopolies, the granting of subsidies or the setting of excessively protectionist customs tariffs, believing that these measures hindered the free market. He also tasks the state with promoting trade through appropriate infrastructure, in line with the state’s current initiatives to develop digital networks, electricity infrastructure and research activities. Smith therefore opposes mercantilism, which regulates the market through customs duties and interventions that run counter to the international division of labour and harm a country’s prosperity.
250 years after its publication, ‘The Wealth of Nations’ remains much more than a historical document; it is neither an ideology nor a scientific theory; it is a rational principle and an intellectual logic that lie at the heart of today’s and tomorrow’s political and social debates.