The birth of economists as an intellectual discipline can be dated fairly precisely in the eighteenth century with the publication of the book The Wealth of Nations.
On March 9, 1776, "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (commonly referred to as simply "The Wealth of Nations") was first published. Adam Smith, a Scottish philosopher by trade, wrote the book to upend the mercantilist system.
Mercantilism held that wealth was fixed and finite and that the only way to prosper was to hoard gold and tariff products from abroad. According to this theory, this meant nations should sell their goods to other countries while buying nothing in return. Predictably, countries fell into rounds of retaliatory tariffs that choked off international trade.
Get free summary and analysis of the events in Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations at Shmoop.