1) What were some of the immediate advantages that nascent America reaped in adopting policies of unfettered trade advanced by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations?
How is American dependence on Smith’s economic policies of capitalism visible in the fabric of our government today?
2) How did the many technological advances of the eighteenth and nineteenth century assist in keeping early American economy on a sure footing?
Consider how the invention of the cotton gin, the spinning mill, the steam engine and the building of the Erie Canal helped revolutionize America as an industrial power. Did these advances produce any long-lasting negative economic consequences?
To what extent is the history of America’s economy a history of its inventions?