ABSTRACT
In Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations , economic growth is caused by capital accumulation, which is in turn the result of saving. Increases in productivity through increased division of labor are a more or less automatic result of accumulation, not an independent cause of growth. Smith was not alone in taking this view; all of the best known classical economists told a similar story, though they changed the details. Not surprisingly, as the industrial revolution progressed some writers admitted a rather larger role for technical change, but it remained very much in the background.
