Although discussions about production and distribution have a long history, economics in its modern sense is conventionally dated from the publication of Adam Smith’s The Wealth of Nations in 1776.^[5] In this work Smith describes the subject in these practical and exacting terms:

Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects: first, to supply a plentiful revenue or product for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.

Smith referred to the subject as ‘political economy’, but that term was gradually replaced in general usage by ‘economics’ after 1870.