Adam smith applied enlightenment ideas of reason to his economic philosophy of laissez-fairs and a free market economy. which statement below best explains his concept of natural law in the government’s role in the economic lives of its citizens? a. the government should control trade. b. high taxes for the poor and low taxes for the rich. c. the government stays out of business regulation to let the people operate as they . d. agriculture based on tenant farming and serfdom.

c. the government stays out of business regulation to let the people operate as they please.  

Adam Smith was a Scottish philosopher, economist, and author, and a key figure of the Enlightenment Period. He is best known for his work An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (1776) and The Theory of Moral Sentiments (1759). His work laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. He was greatly influenced, as most authors during the Enlightenment, by the concept of natural law.

The theory of natural law argues that human lives are rules by some principles that are inherent by virtue of human nature, and that these can be known through reason. During the Age of Enlightenment, this theory was developed, and gave rise to the idea of inalienable rights. Inalienable rights are those that humans have just by virtue of being born and that no one has the authority to limit them.  

Among these rights was the right to property and to the pursuit of happiness. Smith used this argument to make the claim that the government was not allowed to interfere in an individual’s quest for economic success and enterprise. This gave rise to the doctrine of laissez-faire economics.