Adam Smith and His Reception and Influence in Norway

The Enlightenment contributed to economic reforms in Denmark-Norway at the end of the eighteenth century and to the translation of Adam Smith’s Wealth of Nations in 1779–1780. The Treaty of Kiel, which ended the Napoleonic Wars in Northern Europe, led to the Norwegian Constitutional Assembly in 1814 and the drafting of the Constitution. Adam Smith influenced the constitution and especially the paragraph on freedom of business. He also influenced Jacob Aall’s work, during the British blockade, at the Constitutional Assembly, and in the Assembly for more than 20 years, for free trade and abolishment of privileges. In 1840, Anton Martin Schweigaard became professor in political economics and jurisprudence. He did not develop the subject of political economics, nor the research, as he had promised, but as a member of the National Assembly, he continued, inspired by Adam Smith, Aall’s work. When he died in 1870, Torkel Aschehoug took over his position. With him, political economics became a research-based subject and a separate course of study. In his great work Socialøkonomik, he states that Smith’s work “became the basis for today’s political economics.”