# Adam Smith — Religion and the Rise of Capitalism character guide

> Adam Smith in Religion and the Rise of Capitalism by R. H. Tawney.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Adam Smith, Smith, Adam

**First appearance:** 0003-religion-and-the-rise-of-capitalism

## Snapshot

The Scottish economist whose vision of self-interest and market order stands as the endpoint Tawney's history is quietly building toward.

## Who they are

Adam Smith appears in Tawney's narrative as the culmination of a long drift away from the medieval conviction that society is a spiritual organism rather than an economic machine. Where Bucer and the reformers insisted private gain must yield to the public weal, Smith's world assumes economic self-interest can be trusted to serve the whole. He matters because his arrival marks the moment the ethical questions Tawney has been tracing get formally separated from economic science, a divorce the book exists to interrogate.

## In the story

### [I: The Medieval Background](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/i-the-medieval-background)

Mentioned as the greatest English exponent of political arithmetic before his time, though the reference is to the Reverend Dr. Tucker as the greatest before Smith.

### [The Growth of Individualism](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/iii-the-growth-of-individualism)

Referenced for his theory of the invisible hand, which saw in economic self-interest the operation of a providential plan, epitomizing the characteristic doctrine that left little room for religious teaching on economic morality.

### [The New Medicine for Poverty](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/chapters/iv-the-new-medicine-for-poverty)

Referenced as the philosopher who later propounded the individualism that became the rule of English public life a century earlier.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/characters/adam_smith
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/religion_and_the_rise_of_capitalism_se/characters