The Nature and Causes of Wealth

Experience the Event

Presented by Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government

Grasp the fundamental mechanics behind global prosperity. Navigate the intellectual landscape of 1776 to witness how revolutionary ideas birthed modern economics. Re-evaluate your understanding of wealth through the lens of human ingenuity. James Otteson, John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics at the Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame, reveals these timeless principles to comprehend why certain nations flourish while others stagnate, clarifying our complex modern world.

To read along with the class, enjoy the following:

• Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations (1776), bk. 1, chaps. 1–2 (pp. 5–18)
• Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, bk. 4, chap. 2, paras. 1–15 (pp. 418–424)
• Class slides can be found here.

In what sense are “all men . . . created equal”? What is human liberty? What is prosperity, and how is wealth created? In 1776 these questions were addressed and acted upon in ways that have created the modern world. Commemorating the 250th anniversary, explore 1776 and the ideas that made the modern world, focusing on the Declaration of Independence and Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations.

1776 and the Ideas That Made the Modern World, taught by Vincent Phillip Muñoz, Tocqueville Professor of Political Science and Concurrent Professor of Law at the University of Notre Dame and the Founding Director of ND’s Center for Citizenship & Constitutional Government, and James Otteson, John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics in the Mendoza College of Business is sponsored by the Center for Citizenship and Constitutional Government at the University of Notre Dame. To find out more, please visit their website.

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Meet the Faculty: James Otteson

James Otteson is the John T. Ryan Jr. Professor of Business Ethics in the Mendoza College of Business at the University of Notre Dame, where he also serves as the Honors Program Faculty Director. He specializes in business ethics, political economy, the history of economic thought, and eighteenth-century moral philosophy. His books include Adam Smith’s Marketplace of Life (Cambridge, 2002), Actual Ethics (Cambridge, 2006), Adam Smith (Bloomsbury, 2013), The End of Socialism (Cambridge, 2014), The Essential Adam Smith (Fraser Institute, 2018), and Honorable Business: A Framework for Business in a Just and Humane Society (Oxford, 2019). His most recent books are The Essential David Hume (Fraser, 2021), Seven Deadly Economic Sins (Cambridge, 2021), and Should Wealth Be Redistributed? A Debate (with Steven McMullen; Routledge, 2023).