Reflections Inspired by Adam Smith’s Prediction
Why would Adam Smith — a thinker so rigorous in his arguments and so serious in his scholarship — make such a bold prediction about the future of the United States more than 200 years ago?
Author: GUDORDI | 2025-10-29
複利是人世間的第八大奇蹟。
Compound interest is the eighth wonder of the world.── 愛恩斯坦（Albert Einstein）
In the previous article, the author raised a rather profound question: what kind of country is the United States, and why did Adam Smith predict that it would become the most powerful nation in the world even before it had gained independence?
Adam Smith: A Giant in the History of Human Thought
So Deeply Focused That Even the Truth Was Burned Away
Few would doubt that Adam Smith held extraordinarily high standards for his own writing. In fact, The Wealth of Nations spans nearly a thousand pages and took ten years to complete. The book contains countless factual examples and detailed investigations drawn from different places, making it, for many readers, a rather dry and demanding work.
Yet some scholars believe that one of the book’s greatest achievements lies precisely in its meticulous analysis, keen observation, and ability to connect many seemingly unrelated phenomena through a few simple concepts.
Economist Joseph Schumpeter once described it this way: in The Wealth of Nations, Smith was like someone examining the world through a magnifying glass, intensely focused on everything before him. His concentration and attention to detail were so extraordinary that they seemed capable of setting the truth itself aflame — “lighting up the mosaic of detail… heating the facts until they glow.”
This is a remarkably profound and insightful observation. Warren Buffett once said that he reads annual reports the way others read Playboy magazine. Very few people besides Buffett could likely reach such a level of engagement with material that most would consider dull or technical.
It is often said that Schumpeter was the thinker who, after Smith, possessed the deepest understanding of the nature of the market system. His idea of “Creative Destruction” was an exceptionally original and influential insight into capitalism. Schumpeter clearly admired Smith enormously, but perhaps only those with a very high level of intellectual cultivation can truly appreciate the realm of understanding that he saw in Smith’s work.
What Was the Reason Behind Such a Bold Argument?
This raises an important question: why would Adam Smith — a thinker so rigorous in his arguments and so serious in his scholarship — make such a bold prediction about America’s future more than 200 years ago?
Although Smith was extremely cautious in most of his writing, he made at least two remarkably bold assertions. One concerned the future of the United States, while the other related to a nation’s ability to escape poverty — a point the author has previously mentioned. The original text is as follows:
要使一個國家從最野蠻的狀態提升到最富裕的境況，其實並不需要太多東西：持久的和平、簡單寬鬆的稅制，以及可接受、令公義得以彰顯的制度，就此而已。其他所有的東西，其實都可以由事物的自然發展過程中衍生出來。
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
In the author’s view, these two bold arguments made by Adam Smith are fundamentally connected. The logic and reasoning behind them are closely related to the famous quote by Albert Einstein mentioned at the beginning of this article, and they may also offer significant insights into the future of Hong Kong. This will be discussed further in the next article.
