While being a great economic philosopher, Adam Smith, as time has proved, was a not a very good predictor of the future. Several of his ideas, most prominently the theory that price controls production, have been debunked by the passage of time: "We no longer live in a world in which no man can afford to swim against the current."" (p. 58) Giant corporations, who can determine weather market fluctuations and determine their own prices, have replaced the economic landscape of Adam Smith's 1700s. Even though elements of Smith's economic ideas have changed with time, three of his main beliefs have remained important factors in economics to this day: The Law of Accumulation, The Law of Population, and, a philosophy that is truly unique, the invisible hand'. Despite his shortcomings in other predictions, Adam Smith gave several theories that are useful to a modern study of economics. More importantly however, Smith's main work, The Wealth of Nations, provides a glance at how economies functioned near the Industrial Revolution. Because of this window into the eighteenth century, modern economists can compare Smith's economic philosophies to the economies of today, and see which hold true. The most prominent of those philosophies are Smith's Laws and his notion of the invisible hand'.
The Law of Accumulation deals with entrepreneurs, or "industrial capitalists-. (p. 63) Men with the humblest of beginnings, for example Richard Cartwright who was a barber's apprentice in his younger years, could accumulate estates worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The same would prove true over one hundred years later when men like Andrew Carnegie would accumulate corporate empires worth millions. Those who could become rich did and they kept amassing more and more wealth. The goal of the poor was to become rich, and the goal of the rich was to gather more wealth. Therefore, those who could afford to donate to charities disposed of the frivolous notion: "At the beginning of the nineteenth century, £2,500 was collected for the foundation of Sunday schools The sum total contributed by the largest employers in the district was £90.
