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Procter & Gamble. Some Amway distributors distributed an urban legend that the (old) Procter & Gamble service mark was in fact a Satanic symbol or that the CEO of P&G is himself a practicing Satanist. (In some variants of the story, it is also claimed that the CEO of Procter & Gamble donated "satanic tithes" to the Church of Satan.) Procter & Gamble alleged that several Amway distributors were behind a resurgence of the story in the 1990s and sued several independent Amway distributors and the company for defamation and slander. The distributors had used Amway's Amvox voice messaging service to send the rumor to their downline distributors in April 1995. By 2003, after more than a decade of lawsuits in multiple states, all allegations against Amway and Amway distributors had been dismissed. In October 2005, a Utah appeals court reversed part of the decision dismissing the case against the four Amway distributors, and remanded it to the lower court for further proceedings. In the lawsuit against the four former Amway distributors, Procter & Gamble was awarded $19.25 million by a U.S. District Court jury in Salt Lake City on March 20, 2007. On November 24, 2008, the case was officially settled. "It's hard to imagine they'd pursue it this long, especially after all the retractions we put out," said distributor Randy Haugen, a 53-year-old Ogden, Utah, businessman who maintained P&G was never able to show how it was harmed by the rumors. "We are stunned. All of us."
Regulatory violations in Vietnam. In January 2017, the Vietnam Ministry of Industry and Trade determined that Amway Vietnam had violated federal regulations by engaging in unauthorized multi-level marketing. Other issues. Cultism. Some Amway distributor groups have been accused of using "cult-like" tactics to attract new distributors and keep them involved and committed. Allegations include resemblance to a Big Brother organization with a paranoid attitude toward insiders critical of the organization, seminars and rallies resembling religious revival meetings, and enormous involvement of distributors despite minimal incomes. An examination of the 1979–1980 tax records in the state of Wisconsin showed that the Direct Distributors reported a net loss of $918 on average. "Dateline NBC". In 2004, "Dateline NBC" featured a critical report based on a yearlong undercover investigation of business practices of Quixtar. The report noted that the average distributor makes only about $1,400 per year and that many of the "high level distributors singing the praises of Quixtar" are actually "making most of their money by selling motivational books, tapes and seminars; not Quixtar's cosmetics, soaps, and electronics":
In fact, about twenty high level distributors are part of an exclusive club; one that those hundreds of thousands of other distributors don't get to join. For years only a privileged few, including Bill Britt, have run hugely profitable businesses selling all those books, tapes and seminars; things the rank and file distributors can't sell themselves but, are told over and over again, they need to buy in order to succeed. The program said that a Quixtar recruiter featured in the report made misleading and inconsistent statements about Quixtar earnings during a recruitment meeting and had an outstanding arrest warrant for cocaine possession from the mid-90s.
Adam Smith Adam Smith (baptised 1723 – 17 July 1790) was a Scottish economist and philosopher who was a pioneer in the thinking of political economy and key figure during the Scottish Enlightenment. Seen by some as the "father of economics" or the "father of capitalism", he wrote two classic works, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) and "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). The latter, often abbreviated as "The Wealth of Nations", is considered his "magnum opus" and the first modern work that treats economics as a comprehensive system and an academic discipline. Smith refuses to explain the distribution of wealth and power in terms of God's will and instead appeals to natural, political, social, economic, legal, environmental and technological factors and the interactions among them. Among other economic theories, the work introduced Smith's idea of absolute advantage. Smith studied social philosophy at the University of Glasgow and at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was one of the first students to benefit from scholarships set up by fellow Scot John Snell. After graduating, he delivered a successful series of public lectures at the University of Edinburgh, leading him to collaborate with David Hume during the Scottish Enlightenment. Smith obtained a professorship at Glasgow, teaching moral philosophy and during this time, wrote and published "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". In his later life, he took a tutoring position that allowed him to travel throughout Europe, where he met other intellectual leaders of his day.
As a reaction to the common policy of protecting national markets and merchants through minimizing imports and maximizing exports, what came to be known as mercantilism, Smith laid the foundations of classical free market economic theory. "The Wealth of Nations" was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, he developed the concept of division of labour and expounded upon how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by writers such as Horace Walpole. Biography. Early life. Smith was born in Kirkcaldy, in Fife, Scotland. His father, Adam Smith senior, was a Scottish Writer to the Signet (senior solicitor), advocate and prosecutor (judge advocate) and also served as comptroller of the customs in Kirkcaldy. Smith's mother was born Margaret Douglas, daughter of the landed Robert Douglas of Strathendry, also in Fife; she married Smith's father in 1720. Two months before Smith was born, his father died, leaving his mother a widow. The date of Smith's baptism into the Church of Scotland at Kirkcaldy was 5 June 1723 and this has often been treated as if it were also his date of birth, which is unknown.
Although few events in Smith's early childhood are known, the Scottish journalist John Rae, Smith's biographer, recorded that Smith was abducted by Romani at the age of three and released when others went to rescue him. Smith was close to his mother, who probably encouraged him to pursue his scholarly ambitions. He attended the Burgh School of Kirkcaldy—characterised by Rae as "one of the best secondary schools of Scotland at that period"—from 1729 to 1737, he learned Latin, mathematics, history, and writing. Formal education. Smith entered the University of Glasgow at age 14 and studied moral philosophy under Francis Hutcheson. Here he developed his passion for the philosophical concepts of reason, civilian liberties, and free speech. In 1740, he was the graduate scholar presented to undertake postgraduate studies at Balliol College, Oxford, under the Snell Exhibition. Smith considered the teaching at Glasgow to be far superior to that at Oxford, which he found intellectually stifling. In Book V, Chapter II of "The Wealth of Nations", he wrote: "In the University of Oxford, the greater part of the public professors have, for these many years, given up altogether even the pretence of teaching." Smith is also reported to have complained to friends that Oxford officials once discovered him reading a copy of David Hume's "A Treatise of Human Nature", and they subsequently confiscated his book and punished him severely for reading it. According to William Robert Scott, "The Oxford of [Smith's] time gave little if any help towards what was to be his lifework." Nevertheless, he took the opportunity while at Oxford to teach himself several subjects by reading many books from the shelves of the large Bodleian Library. When Smith was not studying on his own, his time at Oxford was not a happy one, according to his letters. Near the end of his time there, he began suffering from shaking fits, probably the symptoms of a nervous breakdown. He left Oxford University in 1746, before his scholarship ended.
In Book V of "The Wealth of Nations", Smith comments on the low quality of instruction and the meager intellectual activity at English universities, when compared to their Scottish counterparts. He attributes this both to the rich endowments of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge, which made the income of professors independent of their ability to attract students, and to the fact that distinguished men of letters could make an even more comfortable living as ministers of the Church of England. Teaching career. Smith began delivering public lectures in 1748 at the University of Edinburgh, sponsored by the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh under the patronage of Lord Kames. His lecture topics included rhetoric and "belles-lettres", and later the subject of "the progress of opulence". On this latter topic, he first expounded his economic philosophy of "the obvious and simple system of natural liberty". While Smith was not adept at public speaking, his lectures met with success. In 1750, Smith met the philosopher David Hume, who was his senior by more than a decade. In their writings covering history, politics, philosophy, economics, and religion, Smith and Hume shared closer intellectual and personal bonds than with other important figures of the Scottish Enlightenment.
In 1751, Smith earned a professorship at Glasgow University teaching logic courses, and in 1752, he was elected a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh, having been introduced to the society by Lord Kames. When the head of Moral Philosophy in Glasgow died the next year, Smith took over the position. He worked as an academic for the next 13 years, which he characterised as "by far the most useful and therefore by far the happiest and most honorable period [of his life]". Smith published "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" in 1759, embodying some of his Glasgow lectures. This work was concerned with how human morality depends on sympathy between agent and spectator, or the individual and other members of society. Smith defined "mutual sympathy" as the basis of moral sentiments. He based his explanation, not on a special "moral sense" as the Third Lord Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had done, nor on utility as Hume did, but on mutual sympathy, a term best captured in modern parlance by the 20th-century concept of empathy, the capacity to recognise feelings that are being experienced by another being.
Following the publication of "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith became so popular that many wealthy students left their schools in other countries to enroll at Glasgow to learn under Smith. At this time, Smith began to give more attention to jurisprudence and economics in his lectures and less to his theories of morals. For example, Smith lectured that the cause of increase in national wealth is labour, rather than the nation's quantity of gold or silver, which is the basis for mercantilism, the economic theory that dominated Western European economic policies at the time. In 1762, the University of Glasgow conferred on Smith the title of Doctor of Laws (LL.D.). At the end of 1763, he obtained an offer from British chancellor of the Exchequer Charles Townshend—who had been introduced to Smith by David Hume—to tutor his stepson, Henry Scott, the young Duke of Buccleuch as preparation for a career in international politics. Smith resigned from his professorship in 1764 to take the tutoring position. He subsequently attempted to return the fees he had collected from his students because he had resigned partway through the term, but his students refused.
Tutoring, travels, European intellectuals. Smith's tutoring job entailed touring Europe with Scott, during which time he educated Scott on a variety of subjects. He was paid £300 per year (plus expenses) along with a £300 per year pension; roughly twice his former income as a teacher. Smith first travelled as a tutor to Toulouse, France, where he stayed for a year and a half. According to his own account, he found Toulouse to be somewhat boring, having written to Hume that he "had begun to write a book to pass away the time". After touring the south of France, the group moved to Geneva, where Smith met with the philosopher Voltaire. From Geneva, the party moved to Paris. Here, Smith met American publisher and diplomat Benjamin Franklin, who a few years later would lead the opposition in the American colonies against four British resolutions from Charles Townshend (in history known as the Townshend Acts), which threatened American colonial self-government and imposed revenue duties on a number of items necessary to the colonies. Smith discovered the Physiocracy school founded by François Quesnay and discussed with their intellectuals. Physiocrats were opposed to mercantilism, the dominating economic theory of the time, illustrated in their motto "Laissez faire et laissez passer, le monde va de lui même!" (Let do and let pass, the world goes on by itself!).
The wealth of France had been virtually depleted by Louis XIV and Louis XV in ruinous wars, and was further exhausted in aiding the American revolutionary soldiers, against the British. Given that the British economy of the day yielded an income distribution that stood in contrast to that which existed in France, Smith concluded that "with all its imperfections, [the Physiocratic school] is perhaps the nearest approximation to the truth that has yet been published upon the subject of political economy." The distinction between productive versus unproductive labour—the physiocratic "classe steril"—was a predominant issue in the development and understanding of what would become classical economic theory. Later years. In 1766, Henry Scott's younger brother died in Paris, and Smith's tour as a tutor ended shortly thereafter. Smith returned home that year to Kirkcaldy, and he devoted much of the next decade to writing his "magnum opus". There, he befriended Henry Moyes, a young blind man who showed precocious aptitude. Smith secured the patronage of David Hume and Thomas Reid in the young man's education. In May 1767, Smith was elected fellow of the Royal Society of London, and was elected a member of the Literary Club in 1775. "The Wealth of Nations" was published in 1776 and was an instant success, selling out its first edition in only six months.
In 1778, Smith was appointed to a post as commissioner of customs in Scotland and went to live with his mother (who died in 1784) in Panmure House in Edinburgh's Canongate. Five years later, as a member of the Philosophical Society of Edinburgh when it received its royal charter, he automatically became one of the founding members of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. From 1787 to 1789, he occupied the honorary position of Lord Rector of the University of Glasgow. Death. Smith died in the northern wing of Panmure House in Edinburgh on 17 July 1790 after a painful illness. His body was buried in the Canongate Kirkyard. On his deathbed, Smith expressed disappointment that he had not achieved more. Smith's literary executors were two friends from the Scottish academic world: the physicist and chemist Joseph Black and the pioneering geologist James Hutton. Smith left behind many notes and some unpublished material, but gave instructions to destroy anything that was not fit for publication. He mentioned an early unpublished "History of Astronomy" as probably suitable, and it duly appeared in 1795, along with other material such as "Essays on Philosophical Subjects".
Smith's library went by his will to David Douglas, Lord Reston (son of his cousin Colonel Robert Douglas of Strathendry, Fife), who lived with Smith. It was eventually divided between his two surviving children, Cecilia Margaret (Mrs. Cunningham) and David Anne (Mrs. Bannerman). On the death in 1878 of her husband, the Reverend W. B. Cunningham of Prestonpans, Mrs. Cunningham sold some of the books. The remainder passed to her son, Professor Robert Oliver Cunningham of Queen's College, Belfast, who presented a part to the library of Queen's College. After his death, the remaining books were sold. On the death of Mrs. Bannerman in 1879, her portion of the library went intact to the New College (of the Free Church) in Edinburgh and the collection was transferred to the University of Edinburgh Main Library in 1972. Personality and beliefs. Character. Not much is known about Smith's personal views beyond what can be deduced from his published articles. His personal papers were destroyed after his death, per his request. He never married, and seems to have maintained a close relationship with his mother, with whom he lived after his return from France and who died six years before him.
Smith was described by several of his contemporaries and biographers as comically absent-minded, with peculiar habits of speech and gait, and a smile of "inexpressible benignity". He was known to talk to himself, a habit that began during his childhood when he would smile in rapt conversation with invisible companions. He also had occasional spells of imaginary illness, and he is reported to have had books and papers placed in tall stacks in his study. According to one story, Smith took Charles Townshend on a tour of a tanning factory, and while discussing free trade, Smith walked into a huge tanning pit from which he needed help to escape. He is also said to have put bread and butter into a teapot, drunk the concoction, and declared it to be the worst cup of tea he had ever had. According to another account, Smith distractedly went out walking in his nightgown and ended up outside of town, before nearby church bells brought him back to reality. James Boswell, who was a student of Smith's at Glasgow University, and later knew him at the Literary Club, says that Smith thought that speaking about his ideas in conversation might reduce the sale of his books, so his conversation was unimpressive. According to Boswell, he once told Sir Joshua Reynolds, that "he made it a rule when in company never to talk of what he understood".
Smith has been alternatively described as someone who "had a large nose, bulging eyes, a protruding lower lip, a nervous twitch, and a speech impediment" and one whose "countenance was manly and agreeable". Smith is said to have acknowledged his looks at one point, saying, "I am a beau in nothing but my books." Smith rarely sat for portraits, so almost all depictions of him created during his lifetime were drawn from memory. The best-known portraits of Smith are the profile by James Tassie and two etchings by John Kay. The line engravings produced for the covers of 19th-century reprints of "The Wealth of Nations" were based largely on Tassie's medallion. Religious views. Considerable scholarly debate has occurred about the nature of Smith's religious views. His father had shown a strong interest in Christianity and belonged to the moderate wing of the Church of Scotland, and the fact that he received the Snell Exhibition suggests that he may have gone to Oxford with the intention of pursuing a career in the Church of England.
Anglo-American economist Ronald Coase challenged the view that Smith was a deist, based on the fact that Smith's writings never explicitly invoke God as an explanation of the harmonies of the natural or the human worlds. According to Coase, though Smith does sometimes refer to the "Great Architect of the Universe", later scholars such as Jacob Viner have "very much exaggerated the extent to which Adam Smith was committed to a belief in a personal God", a belief for which Coase finds little evidence in passages such as the one in the "Wealth of Nations" in which Smith writes that the curiosity of mankind about the "great phenomena of nature", such as "the generation, the life, growth, and dissolution of plants and animals", has led men to "enquire into their causes", and that "superstition first attempted to satisfy this curiosity, by referring all those wonderful appearances to the immediate agency of the gods. Philosophy afterwards endeavoured to account for them, from more familiar causes, or from such as mankind were better acquainted with than the agency of the gods". Some authors argue that Smith's social and economic philosophy is inherently theological and that his entire model of social order is logically dependent on the notion of God's action in nature. Brendan Long argues that Smith was a theist, whereas according to professor Gavin Kennedy, Smith was "in some sense" a Christian.
Smith was also a close friend of David Hume, who, despite debate about his religious views in modern scholarship, was commonly characterised in his own time as an atheist. The publication in 1777 of Smith's letter to William Strahan, in which he described Hume's courage in the face of death in spite of his irreligiosity, attracted considerable controversy. Published works. "The Theory of Moral Sentiments". In 1759, Smith published his first work, "The Theory of Moral Sentiments," sold by co-publishers Andrew Millar of London and Alexander Kincaid of Edinburgh. Smith continued making extensive revisions to the book until his death. Although "The Wealth of Nations" is widely regarded as Smith's most influential work, Smith himself is believed to have considered "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" to be a superior work. In the work, Smith critically examines the moral thinking of his time, and suggests that conscience arises from dynamic and interactive social relationships through which people seek "mutual sympathy of sentiments." His goal in writing the work was to explain the source of mankind's ability to form moral judgment, given that people begin life with no moral sentiments at all. Smith proposes a theory of sympathy, in which the act of observing others and seeing the judgments they form of both others and oneself makes people aware of themselves and how others perceive their behaviour. The feedback received by an individual from perceiving (or imagining) others' judgment creates an incentive to achieve "mutual sympathy of sentiments" with them and leads people to develop habits, and then principles, of behaviour, which come to constitute one's conscience.
Some scholars have perceived a conflict between "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations"; the former emphasises sympathy for others, while the latter focuses on the role of self-interest. In recent years, however, some scholars of Smith's work have argued that no contradiction exists. They contend that in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", Smith develops a theory of psychology in which individuals seek the approval of the "impartial spectator" as a result of a natural desire to have outside observers sympathise with their sentiments. Rather than viewing "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and "The Wealth of Nations" as presenting incompatible views of human nature, some Smith scholars regard the works as emphasising different aspects of human nature that vary depending on the situation. In the first part – "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" – he laid down the foundation of his vision of humanity and society. In the second – "The Wealth of Nations" – he elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. It was his plan to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book. Otteson argues that both books are Newtonian in their methodology and deploy a similar "market model" for explaining the creation and development of large-scale human social orders, including morality, economics, as well as language. Ekelund and Hebert offer a differing view, observing that self-interest is present in both works and that "in the former, sympathy is the moral faculty that holds self-interest in check, whereas in the latter, competition is the economic faculty that restrains self-interest."
"The Wealth of Nations". Disagreement exists between classical and neoclassical economists about the central message of Smith's most influential work: "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations" (1776). Neoclassical economists emphasise Smith's invisible hand, a concept mentioned in the middle of his work – Book IV, Chapter II – and classical economists believe that Smith stated his programme for promoting the "wealth of nations" in the first sentences, which attributes the growth of wealth and prosperity to the division of labour. He elaborated on the virtue of prudence, which for him meant the relations between people in the private sphere of the economy. He planned to further elaborate on the virtue of justice in the third book. Smith used the term "the invisible hand" in "History of Astronomy" referring to "the invisible hand of Jupiter", and once in each of his "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" (1759) and "The Wealth of Nations" (1776). This last statement about "an invisible hand" has been interpreted in numerous ways.
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good. It is an affectation, indeed, not very common among merchants, and very few words need be employed in dissuading them from it.
Those who regard that statement as Smith's central message also quote frequently Smith's dictum: It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages.However, in "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" he had a more sceptical approach to self-interest as driver of behaviour:How selfish soever man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though he derives nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.
It is the great multiplication of the production of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all the different ranks of society. ("The Wealth of Nations," I.i.10) The neoclassical interest in Smith's statement about "an invisible hand" originates in the possibility of seeing it as a precursor of neoclassical economics and its concept of general equilibrium; Samuelson's "Economics" refers six times to Smith's "invisible hand". To emphasise this connection, Samuelson quotes Smith's "invisible hand" statement substituting "general interest" for "public interest". Samuelson concludes: "Smith was unable to prove the essence of his invisible-hand doctrine. Indeed, until the 1940s, no one knew how to prove, even to state properly, the kernel of truth in this proposition about perfectly competitive market."
Conversely, classical economists see in Smith's first sentences his programme to promote "The Wealth of Nations". Using the physiocratical concept of the economy as a circular process, to secure growth the inputs of Period 2 must exceed the inputs of Period 1. Therefore, those outputs of Period 1 which are not used or usable as inputs of Period 2 are regarded as unproductive labour, as they do not contribute to growth. This is what Smith had heard in France from, among others, François Quesnay, whose ideas Smith was so impressed by that he might have dedicated "The Wealth of Nations" to him had he not died beforehand. To this French insight that unproductive labour should be reduced to use labour more productively, Smith added his own proposal, that productive labour should be made even more productive by deepening the division of labour. Smith argued that deepening the division of labour under competition leads to greater productivity, which leads to lower prices and thus an increasing standard of living—"general plenty" and "universal opulence"—for all. Extended markets and increased production lead to the continuous reorganisation of production and the invention of new ways of producing, which in turn lead to further increased production, lower prices, and improved standards of living. Smith's central message is, therefore, that under dynamic competition, a growth machine secures "The Wealth of Nations". Smith's argument predicted Britain's evolution as the workshop of the world, underselling and outproducing all its competitors. The opening sentences of the "Wealth of Nations" summarise this policy:
The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes ... . [T]his produce ... bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it ... .[B]ut this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different circumstances; However, Smith added that the "abundance or scantiness of this supply too seems to depend more upon the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter." In "The Wealth of Nations", Smith states four maxims of taxation: (1) equality (people must contribute to the support of the government in proportion to their abilities), (2) certainty (the time, manner, and quantity of tax imposed must be certain, transparent, and not arbitrary), (3) convenience for taxpayers, and (4) economy in tax collection. According to Smith, "It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more in that proportion".
Smith wrote that a government is duty-bound to provide public services that "support the whole of society" like provide public education, transportation, national defense, a justice system, public safety, and public infrastructure to support commerce. Other works. Shortly before his death, Smith had nearly all his manuscripts destroyed. In his last years, he seemed to have been planning two major treatises, one on the theory and history of law and one on the sciences and arts. The posthumously published "Essays on Philosophical Subjects", a history of astronomy down to Smith's own era, plus some thoughts on ancient physics and metaphysics, probably contain parts of what would have been the latter treatise. "Lectures on Jurisprudence" were notes taken from Smith's early lectures, plus an early draft of "The Wealth of Nations", published as part of the 1976 Glasgow Edition of the works and correspondence of Smith. Other works, including some published posthumously, include "Lectures on Justice, Police, Revenue, and Arms" (1763) (first published in 1896); and "Essays on Philosophical Subjects" (1795).
Legacy. In economics and moral philosophy. "The Wealth of Nations" was a precursor to the modern academic discipline of economics. In this and other works, Smith expounded how rational self-interest and competition can lead to economic prosperity. Smith was controversial in his own day and his general approach and writing style were often satirised by Tory writers in the moralising tradition of Hogarth and Swift, as a discussion at the University of Winchester suggests. In 2005, "The Wealth of Nations" was named among the 100 Best Scottish Books of all time. In light of the arguments put forward by Smith and other economic theorists in Britain, academic belief in mercantilism began to decline in Britain in the late 18th century. During the Industrial Revolution, Britain embraced free trade and Smith's "laissez-faire" economics, and via the British Empire, used its power to spread a broadly liberal economic model around the world, characterised by open markets, and relatively barrier-free domestic and international trade.
George Stigler attributes to Smith "the most important substantive proposition in all of economics". It is that, under competition, owners of resources (for example labour, land, and capital) will use them most profitably, resulting in an equal rate of return in equilibrium for all uses, adjusted for apparent differences arising from such factors as training, trust, hardship, and unemployment. Paul Samuelson finds in Smith's pluralist use of supply and demand as applied to wages, rents, and profit a valid and valuable anticipation of the general equilibrium modelling of Walras a century later. Smith's allowance for wage increases in the short and intermediate term from capital accumulation and invention contrasted with Malthus, Ricardo, and Karl Marx in their propounding a rigid subsistence–wage theory of labour supply. Joseph Schumpeter criticised Smith for a lack of technical rigour, yet he argued that this enabled Smith's writings to appeal to wider audiences: "His very limitation made for success. Had he been more brilliant, he would not have been taken so seriously. Had he dug more deeply, had he unearthed more recondite truth, had he used more difficult and ingenious methods, he would not have been understood. But he had no such ambitions; in fact he disliked whatever went beyond plain common sense. He never moved above the heads of even the dullest readers. He led them on gently, encouraging them by trivialities and homely observations, making them feel comfortable all along."
Classical economists presented competing theories to those of Smith, termed the "labour theory of value". Later Marxian economics descending from classical economics also use Smith's labour theories, in part. The first volume of Karl Marx's major work, "Das Kapital", was published in German in 1867. In it, Marx focused on the labour theory of value and what he considered to be the exploitation of labour by capital. The labour theory of value held that the value of a thing was determined by the labour that went into its production. This contrasts with the modern contention of neoclassical economics, that the value of a thing is determined by what one is willing to give up to obtain the thing. The body of theory later termed "neoclassical economics" or "marginalism" formed from about 1870 to 1910. The term "economics" was popularised by such neoclassical economists as Alfred Marshall as a concise synonym for "economic science" and a substitute for the earlier, broader term "political economy" used by Smith. This corresponded to the influence on the subject of mathematical methods used in the natural sciences. Neoclassical economics systematised supply and demand as joint determinants of price and quantity in market equilibrium, affecting both the allocation of output and the distribution of income. It dispensed with the labour theory of value of which Smith was most famously identified with in classical economics, in favour of a marginal utility theory of value on the demand side and a more general theory of costs on the supply side.
The bicentennial anniversary of the publication of "The Wealth of Nations" was celebrated in 1976, resulting in increased interest for "The Theory of Moral Sentiments" and his other works throughout academia. After 1976, Smith was more likely to be represented as the author of both "The Wealth of Nations" and "The Theory of Moral Sentiments", and thereby as the founder of a moral philosophy and the science of economics. His "homo economicus" or "economic man" was also more often represented as a moral person. Additionally, economists David Levy and Sandra Peart in "The Secret History of the Dismal Science" point to his opposition to hierarchy and beliefs in inequality, including racial inequality, and provide additional support for those who point to Smith's opposition to slavery, colonialism, and empire. Emphasised also are Smith's statements of the need for high wages for the poor, and the efforts to keep wages low. In The "Vanity of the Philosopher: From Equality to Hierarchy in Postclassical Economics", Peart and Levy also cite Smith's view that a common street porter was not intellectually inferior to a philosopher, and point to the need for greater appreciation of the public views in discussions of science and other subjects now considered to be technical. They also cite Smith's opposition to the often expressed view that science is superior to common sense.
Smith also explained the relationship between growth of private property and civil government: Men may live together in society with some tolerable degree of security, though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade property, passions much more steady in their operation, and much more universal in their influence. Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions. It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security.
It is only under the shelter of the civil magistrate that the owner of that valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years, or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease, and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful arm of the civil magistrate continually held up to chastise it. The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore, necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of two or three days' labour, civil government is not so necessary. Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the acquisition of valuable property, so the principal causes which naturally introduce subordination gradually grow up with the growth of that valuable property. (...) Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs.
(...) Men of inferior wealth combine to defend those of superior wealth in the possession of their property, in order that men of superior wealth may combine to defend them in the possession of theirs. All the inferior shepherds and herdsmen feel that the security of their own herds and flocks depends upon the security of those of the great shepherd or herdsman; that the maintenance of their lesser authority depends upon that of his greater authority, and that upon their subordination to him depends his power of keeping their inferiors in subordination to them. They constitute a sort of little nobility, who feel themselves interested to defend the property and to support the authority of their own little sovereign in order that he may be able to defend their property and to support their authority. Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defence of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.
In British imperial debates. Smith opposed empire. He challenged ideas that colonies were key to British prosperity and power. He rejected that other cultures, such as China and India, were culturally and developmentally inferior to Europe. While he favoured "commercial society", he did not support radical social change and the imposition of commercial society on other societies. He proposed that colonies be given independence or that full political rights be extended to colonial subjects. Smith's chapter on colonies, in turn, would help shape British imperial debates from the mid-19th century onward. "The Wealth of Nations" would become an ambiguous text regarding the imperial question. In his chapter on colonies, Smith pondered how to solve the crisis developing across the Atlantic among the empire's 13 American colonies. He offered two different proposals for easing tensions. The first proposal called for giving the colonies their independence, and by thus parting on a friendly basis, Britain would be able to develop and maintain a free-trade relationship with them, and possibly even an informal military alliance. Smith's second proposal called for a theoretical imperial federation that would bring the colonies and the metropole closer together through an imperial parliamentary system and imperial free trade.
Smith's most prominent disciple in 19th-century Britain, peace advocate Richard Cobden, preferred the first proposal. Cobden would lead the Anti-Corn Law League in overturning the Corn Laws in 1846, shifting Britain to a policy of free trade and empire "on the cheap" for decades to come. This hands-off approach toward the British Empire would become known as Cobdenism or the Manchester School. By the turn of the century, however, advocates of Smith's second proposal such as Joseph Shield Nicholson would become ever more vocal in opposing Cobdenism, calling instead for imperial federation. As Marc-William Palen notes: "On the one hand, Adam Smith's late nineteenth and early twentieth-century Cobdenite adherents used his theories to argue for gradual imperial devolution and empire 'on the cheap'. On the other, various proponents of imperial federation throughout the British World sought to use Smith's theories to overturn the predominant Cobdenite hands-off imperial approach and instead, with a firm grip, bring the empire closer than ever before." Smith's ideas thus played an important part in subsequent debates over the British Empire.
Portraits, monuments, and banknotes. Smith has been commemorated in the UK on banknotes printed by two different banks; his portrait has appeared since 1981 on the £50 notes issued by the Clydesdale Bank in Scotland, and in March 2007 Smith's image also appeared on the new series of £20 notes issued by the Bank of England, making him the first Scotsman to feature on an English banknote. Between 1867 and 1870, a statue of Smith was built into the outside wall of 6 Burlington Gardens, then the headquarters of the University of London (now home to the Royal Academy of Arts). A large-scale memorial of Smith by Alexander Stoddart was unveiled on 4 July 2008 in Edinburgh. It is a -tall bronze sculpture and it stands above the Royal Mile outside St Giles' Cathedral in Parliament Square, near the Mercat cross. Sculptor Jim Sanborn has created multiple pieces which feature Smith's work. At Central Connecticut State University is "Circulating Capital", a tall cylinder which features an extract from "The Wealth of Nations" on the lower half, and on the upper half, some of the same text, but represented in binary code. At the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, outside the Belk College of Business Administration, is "Adam Smith's Spinning Top". Another Smith sculpture is at Cleveland State University. Smith also appears as the narrator in the 2013 play "The Low Road", centred on a proponent on "laissez-faire" economics in the late 18th century, but dealing obliquely with the 2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession; he was portrayed by Bill Paterson in the premiere production at the Royal Court Theatre in London.
A bust of Smith is in the Hall of Heroes of the National Wallace Monument in Stirling. Five paving stones, displaying quotations from Smith's works, were unveiled in December 2023 in the High Street, Glasgow. The stones were commissioned by the University of Glasgow to mark the 300th anniversary of Smith's birth. Panmure House. Adam Smith resided at Panmure House from 1778 to 1790. In 2008, the house was purchased by the Edinburgh Business School at Heriot-Watt University and funds were raised for its restoration. In 2018 it was formally opened as a study centre in Smith's honour. As a symbol of free-market economics. Smith has been celebrated by advocates of free-market policies as the founder of free-market economics, a view reflected in the naming of bodies such as the Adam Smith Institute in London, multiple entities known as the "Adam Smith Society", including an historical Italian organisation, and the U.S.-based Adam Smith Society, and the Australian Adam Smith Club, and in terms such as the Adam Smith necktie.
Former US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan argues that, while Smith did not coin the term "laissez-faire", "it was left to Adam Smith to identify the more-general set of principles that brought conceptual clarity to the seeming chaos of market transactions." Greenspan continues that "The Wealth of Nations" was "one of the great achievements in human intellectual history." P.J. O'Rourke describes Smith as the "founder of free market economics." Nobel laureate economist Milton Friedman believed in 1976, 200 years after the publishing of "The Wealth of Nations", that the work of Adam Smith was, "...far more immediately relevant today than he was at the Centennial of The Wealth of Nations in 1876." Other writers have argued that Smith's support for "laissez-faire" (which in French means leave alone) has been overstated. Herbert Stein wrote that the people who "wear an Adam Smith necktie" do it to "make a statement of their devotion to the idea of free markets and limited government", and that this misrepresents Smith's ideas. Stein writes that Smith "was not pure or doctrinaire about this idea. He viewed government intervention in the market with great skepticism...yet he was prepared to accept or propose qualifications to that policy in the specific cases where he judged that their net effect would be beneficial and would not undermine the basically free character of the system. He did not wear the Adam Smith necktie." In Stein's reading, "The Wealth of Nations" could justify the Food and Drug Administration, the Consumer Product Safety Commission, mandatory employer health benefits, environmentalism, and "discriminatory taxation to deter improper or luxurious behavior".
Similarly, Vivienne Brown stated in "The Economic Journal" that in the 20th-century United States, Reaganomics supporters, "The Wall Street Journal", and other similar sources have spread among the general public a partial and misleading vision of Smith, portraying him as an "extreme dogmatic defender of "laissez-faire" capitalism and supply-side economics". In fact, "The Wealth of Nations" includes the following statement on the payment of taxes: The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state. Some commentators have argued that Smith's works show support for a progressive, not flat, income tax and that he specifically named taxes that he thought should be required by the state, among them luxury-goods taxes and tax on rent. Yet Smith argued for the "impossibility of taxing the people, in proportion to their economic revenue, by any capitation". Smith argued that taxes should principally go toward protecting "justice" and "certain publick institutions" that were necessary for the benefit of all of society, which could not be adequately provided by private enterprise.
Additionally, Smith outlined the proper expenses of the government in "The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Ch. I". Included in his requirements of a government is to enforce contracts and provide justice system, grant patents and copy rights, provide public goods such as infrastructure, provide national defence, and regulate banking. The role of the government was to provide goods "of such a nature that the profit could never repay the expense to any individual" such as roads, bridges, canals, and harbours. He also encouraged invention and new ideas through his patent enforcement and support of infant industry monopolies. He supported partial public subsidies for elementary education, and he believed that competition among religious institutions would provide general benefit to the society. In such cases, Smith argued for local rather than centralised control: "Even those publick works which are of such a nature that they cannot afford any revenue for maintaining themselves ... are always better maintained by a local or provincial revenue, under the management of a local and provincial administration, than by the general revenue of the state" ("Wealth of Nations," V.i.d.18). Finally, he outlined how the government should support the dignity of the monarch or chief magistrate, such that they are equal or above the public in fashion. He further stated that monarchs should be provided for in a greater fashion than magistrates of a republic because "we naturally expect more splendor in the court of a king than in the mansion-house of a doge". In addition, he allowed that in some specific circumstances, retaliatory tariffs may be beneficial:
The recovery of a great foreign market will generally more than compensate the transitory inconvenience of paying dearer during a short time for some sorts of goods. However, he added that in general, a retaliatory tariff "seems a bad method of compensating the injury done to certain classes of our people, to do another injury ourselves, not only to those classes, but to almost all the other classes of them". Economic historians such as Jacob Viner regard Smith as a strong advocate of free markets and limited government (what Smith called "natural liberty"), but not as a dogmatic supporter of "laissez-faire". Economist Daniel Klein believes using the term "free-market economics" or "free-market economist" to identify the ideas of Smith is too general and slightly misleading. Klein offers six characteristics central to the identity of Smith's economic thought and argues that a new name is needed to give a more accurate depiction of the "Smithian" identity. Economist David Ricardo set straight some of the misunderstandings about Smith's thoughts on free market. Many continue to fall victim to the thinking that Smith was a free-market economist without exception, though he was not. Ricardo pointed out that Smith was in support of helping infant industries. Smith believed that the government should subsidise newly formed industry, but he did fear that when the infant industry grew into adulthood, it would be unwilling to surrender the government help. Smith also supported tariffs on imported goods to counteract an internal tax on the same good. Smith also fell to pressure in supporting some tariffs in support for national defence.
Some have also claimed, Emma Rothschild among them, that Smith would have supported a minimum wage, although no direct textual evidence supports the claim. Indeed, Smith wrote: The price of labour, it must be observed, cannot be ascertained very accurately anywhere, different prices being often paid at the same place and for the same sort of labour, not only according to the different abilities of the workmen, but according to the easiness or hardness of the masters. Where wages are not regulated by law, all that we can pretend to determine is what are the most usual; and experience seems to show that law can never regulate them properly, though it has often pretended to do so. ("The Wealth of Nations", Book 1, Chapter 8) However, Smith also noted, to the contrary, the existence of an imbalanced, inequality of bargaining power: A landlord, a farmer, a master manufacturer, a merchant, though they did not employ a single workman, could generally live a year or two upon the stocks which they have already acquired. Many workmen could not subsist a week, few could subsist a month, and scarce any a year without employment. In the long run, the workman may be as necessary to his master as his master is to him, but the necessity is not so immediate.
Antoine Lavoisier Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier ( ; ; 26 August 17438 May 1794), also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology. It is generally accepted that Lavoisier's great accomplishments in chemistry stem largely from his changing the science from a qualitative to a quantitative one. Lavoisier is most noted for his discovery of the role oxygen plays in combustion. He named oxygen (1778), recognizing it as an element, and also recognized hydrogen as an element (1783), opposing the phlogiston theory. Lavoisier helped construct the metric system, wrote the first extensive list of elements, and helped to reform chemical nomenclature. He predicted the existence of silicon (1787) and discovered that, although matter may change its form or shape, its mass always remains the same. His wife and laboratory assistant, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, became a renowned chemist in her own right.
Lavoisier was a powerful member of a number of aristocratic councils, and an administrator of the "Ferme générale". The "Ferme générale" was one of the most hated components of the "Ancien Régime" because of the profits it took at the expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. All of these political and economic activities enabled him to fund his scientific research. At the height of the French Revolution, he was charged with tax fraud and selling adulterated tobacco, and was guillotined despite appeals to spare his life in recognition of his contributions to science. A year and a half later, he was exonerated by the French government. Biography. Early life and education. Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier was born to a wealthy family of the nobility in Paris on 26 August 1743. The son of an attorney at the Parlement of Paris, he inherited a large fortune at the age of five upon the death of his mother. Lavoisier began his schooling at the Collège des Quatre-Nations, University of Paris (also known as the Collège Mazarin) in Paris in 1754 at the age of 11. In his last two years (1760–1761) at the school, his scientific interests were aroused, and he studied chemistry, botany, astronomy, and mathematics. In the philosophy class he came under the tutelage of Abbé Nicolas Louis de Lacaille, a distinguished mathematician and observational astronomer who imbued the young Lavoisier with an interest in meteorological observation, an enthusiasm which never left him. Lavoisier entered the school of law, where he received a bachelor's degree in 1763 and a licentiate in 1764. Lavoisier received a law degree and was admitted to the bar, but never practiced as a lawyer. However, he continued his scientific education in his spare time.
Early scientific work. Lavoisier's education was filled with the ideals of the French Enlightenment of the time, and he was fascinated by Pierre Macquer's dictionary of chemistry. He attended lectures in the natural sciences. Lavoisier's devotion and passion for chemistry were largely influenced by Étienne Condillac, a prominent French scholar of the 18th century. His first chemical publication appeared in 1764. From 1763 to 1767, he studied geology under Jean-Étienne Guettard. In collaboration with Guettard, Lavoisier worked on a geological survey of Alsace-Lorraine in June 1767. In 1764 he read his first paper to the French Academy of Sciences, France's most elite scientific society, on the chemical and physical properties of gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate), and in 1766 he was awarded a gold medal by the King for an essay on the problems of urban street lighting. In 1768 Lavoisier received a provisional appointment to the Academy of Sciences. In 1769, he worked on the first geological map of France. Lavoisier as a social reformer.
Research benefitting the public good. While Lavoisier is commonly known for his contributions to the sciences, he also dedicated a significant portion of his fortune and work toward benefitting the public. Lavoisier was a humanitarian—he cared deeply about the people in his country and often concerned himself with improving the livelihood of the population by agriculture, industry, and the sciences. The first instance of this occurred in 1765, when he submitted an essay on improving urban street lighting to the French Academy of Sciences. Three years later in 1768, he focused on a new project to design an aqueduct. The goal was to bring water from the river Yvette into Paris so that the citizens could have clean drinking water. But, since the construction never commenced, he instead turned his focus to purifying the water from the Seine. This was the project that interested Lavoisier in the chemistry of water and public sanitation duties. Additionally, he was interested in air quality and spent some time studying the health risks associated with gunpowder's effect on the air. In 1772, he performed a study on how to reconstruct the Hôtel-Dieu hospital, after it had been damaged by fire, in a way that would allow proper ventilation and clean air throughout.
At the time, the prisons in Paris were known to be largely unlivable and the prisoners' treatment inhumane. Lavoisier took part in investigations in 1780 (and again in 1791) on the hygiene in prisons and had made suggestions to improve living conditions, suggestions which were largely ignored. Once a part of the academy, Lavoisier also held his own competitions to push the direction of research towards bettering the public and his own work. Sponsorship of the sciences. Lavoisier had a vision of public education having roots in "scientific sociability" and philanthropy. Lavoisier gained a vast majority of his income through buying stock in the General Farm, which allowed him to work on science full-time, live comfortably, and allowed him to contribute financially to better the community. (It would also contribute to his demise during the Reign of Terror many years later.) It was very difficult to secure public funding for the sciences at the time, and additionally not very financially profitable for the average scientist, so Lavoisier used his wealth to open a very expensive and sophisticated laboratory in France so that aspiring scientists could study without the barriers of securing funding for their research.
He also pushed for public education in the sciences. He founded two organizations, and Musée des Arts et Métiers, which were created to serve as educational tools for the public. Funded by the wealthy and noble, the Lycée regularly taught courses to the public beginning in 1793. Ferme générale and marriage. At the age of 26, around the time he was elected to the Academy of Sciences, Lavoisier bought a share in the "Ferme générale", a tax farming financial company which advanced the estimated tax revenue to the royal government in return for the right to collect the taxes. On behalf of the Ferme générale Lavoisier commissioned the building of a wall around Paris so that customs duties could be collected from those transporting goods into and out of the city. His participation in the collection of its taxes did not help his reputation when the Reign of Terror began in France, as taxes and poor government reform were the primary motivators during the French Revolution. Lavoisier consolidated his social and economic position when, in 1771 at age 28, he married Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze, the 13-year-old daughter of a senior member of the "Ferme générale". She was to play an important part in Lavoisier's scientific career—notably, she translated English documents for him, including Richard Kirwan's "Essay on Phlogiston" and Joseph Priestley's research. In addition, she assisted him in the laboratory and created many sketches and carved engravings of the laboratory instruments used by Lavoisier and his colleagues for their scientific works. Madame Lavoisier edited and published Antoine's memoirs (whether any English translations of those memoirs have survived is unknown as of today) and hosted parties at which eminent scientists discussed ideas and problems related to chemistry.
A portrait of Antoine and Marie-Anne Lavoisier was painted by the famed artist Jacques-Louis David. Completed in 1788 on the eve of the Revolution, the painting was denied a customary public display at the Paris Salon for fear that it might inflame anti-aristocratic passions. For three years following his entry into the "Ferme générale", Lavoisier's scientific activity diminished somewhat, for much of his time was taken up with official "Ferme générale" business. He did, however, present one important memoir to the Academy of Sciences during this period, on the supposed conversion of water into earth by evaporation. By a very precise quantitative experiment, Lavoisier showed that the "earthy" sediment produced after long-continued reflux heating of water in a glass vessel was not due to a conversion of the water into earth but rather to the gradual disintegration of the inside of the glass vessel produced by the boiling water. He also attempted to introduce reforms in the French monetary and taxation system to help the peasants.
Adulteration of tobacco. The Farmers General held a monopoly of the production, import and sale of tobacco in France, and the taxes they levied on tobacco brought revenues of 30 million livres a year. This revenue began to fall because of a growing black market in tobacco that was smuggled and adulterated, most commonly with ash and water. Lavoisier devised a method of checking whether ash had been mixed in with tobacco: "When a spirit of vitriol, "aqua fortis" or some other acid solution is poured on ash, there is an immediate very intense effervescent reaction, accompanied by an easily detected noise." Lavoisier also noticed that the addition of a small amount of ash improved the flavour of tobacco. Of one vendor selling adulterated goods, he wrote "His tobacco enjoys a very good reputation in the province... the very small proportion of ash that is added gives it a particularly pungent flavour that consumers look for. Perhaps the Farm could gain some advantage by adding a bit of this liquid mixture when the tobacco is fabricated." Lavoisier also found that while adding a lot of water to bulk the tobacco up would cause it to ferment and smell bad, the addition of a very small amount improved the product.
Thereafter the factories of the Farmers General added, as he recommended, a consistent 6.3% of water by volume to the tobacco they processed. To allow for this addition, the Farmers General delivered to retailers seventeen ounces of tobacco while only charging for sixteen. To ensure that only these authorised amounts were added, and to exclude the black market, Lavoisier saw to it that a watertight system of checks, accounts, supervision and testing made it very difficult for retailers to source contraband tobacco or to improve their profits by bulking it up. He was energetic and rigorous in implementing this, and the systems he introduced were deeply unpopular with the tobacco retailers across the country. This unpopularity was to have consequences for him during the French Revolution. Royal Commission on Agriculture. Lavoisier urged the establishment of a Royal Commission on Agriculture. He then served as its Secretary and spent considerable sums of his own money in order to improve the agricultural yields in the Sologne, an area where farmland was of poor quality. The humidity of the region often led to a blight of the rye harvest, causing outbreaks of ergotism among the population. In 1788 Lavoisier presented a report to the Commission detailing ten years of efforts on his experimental farm to introduce new crops and types of livestock. His conclusion was that despite the possibilities of agricultural reforms, the tax system left tenant farmers with so little that it was unrealistic to expect them to change their traditional practices.
Gunpowder Commission. Lavoisier's researches on combustion were carried out in the midst of a very busy schedule of public and private duties, especially in connection with the "Ferme Générale". There were also innumerable reports for and committees of the Academy of Sciences to investigate specific problems on order of the royal government. Lavoisier, whose organizing skills were outstanding, frequently landed the task of writing up such official reports. In 1775 he was made one of four commissioners of gunpowder appointed to replace a private company, similar to the Ferme Générale, which had proved unsatisfactory in supplying France with its munitions requirements. As a result of his efforts, both the quantity and quality of French gunpowder greatly improved, and it became a source of revenue for the government. His appointment to the Gunpowder Commission brought one great benefit to Lavoisier's scientific career as well. As a commissioner, he enjoyed both a house and a laboratory in the Royal Arsenal. Here he lived and worked between 1775 and 1792.
Lavoisier was a formative influence in the formation of the Du Pont gunpowder business because he trained Éleuthère Irénée du Pont, its founder, on gunpowder-making in France; the latter said that the Du Pont gunpowder mills "would never have been started but for his kindness to me." During the Revolution. In June 1791, Lavoisier made a loan of 71,000 livres to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours to buy a printing works so that du Pont could publish a newspaper, "La Correspondance Patriotique". The plan was for this to include both reports of debates in the National Constituent Assembly as well as papers from the Academy of Sciences. The revolution quickly disrupted the elder du Pont's first newspaper, but his son E.I. du Pont soon launched "Le Republicain" and published Lavoisier's latest chemistry texts. Lavoisier also chaired the commission set up to establish a uniform system of weights and measures which in March 1791 recommended the adoption of the metric system. The new system of weights and measures was adopted by the Convention on 1 August 1793. Lavoisier was one of the 27 Farmers General who, by order of the convention, were all to be detained. Although temporarily going into hiding, on 30 November 1793 he handed himself into the Port Royal convent for questioning. He claimed he had not operated on this commission for many years, having instead devoted himself to science.
Lavoisier himself was removed from the commission on weights and measures on 23 December 1793, together with mathematician Pierre-Simon Laplace and several other members, for political reasons. One of his last major works was a proposal to the National Convention for the reform of French education. He also intervened on behalf of a number of foreign-born scientists including mathematician Joseph Louis Lagrange, helping to exempt them from a mandate stripping all foreigners of possessions and freedom. Final days and execution. As the French Revolution gained momentum, attacks mounted on the deeply unpopular "Ferme générale", and it was eventually abolished in March 1791. In 1792 Lavoisier was forced to resign from his post on the Gunpowder Commission and to move from his house and laboratory at the Royal Arsenal. On 8 August 1793, all the learned societies, including the Academy of Sciences, were suppressed at the request of Abbé Grégoire. On 24 November 1793, the arrest of all the former tax farmers was ordered. Lavoisier and the other Farmers General faced nine accusations of defrauding the state of money owed to it, and of adding water to tobacco before selling it. Lavoisier drafted their defense, refuting the financial accusations, reminding the court of how they had maintained a consistently high quality of tobacco. The court, however, was inclined to believe that by condemning them and seizing the goods of the Farmers General, it would recover huge sums for the state. Lavoisier was convicted and guillotined on 8 May 1794 in Paris, at the age of 50, along with his 27 co-defendants.
According to popular legend, the appeal to spare his life, in order that he could continue his experiments, was cut short by the judge, Coffinhal: "La République n'a pas besoin de savants ni de chimistes; le cours de la justice ne peut être suspendu." ("The Republic needs neither scholars nor chemists; the course of justice cannot be delayed.") The judge Coffinhal himself would be executed less than three months later, in the wake of the Thermidorian reaction. Lavoisier's importance to science was expressed by Lagrange who lamented the beheading by saying: "Il ne leur a fallu qu'un moment pour faire tomber cette tête, et cent années peut-être ne suffiront pas pour en reproduire une semblable." ("It took them only an instant to cut off this head, and a hundred years might not suffice to reproduce its like.") Exoneration. A year and a half after his execution, Lavoisier was completely exonerated by the French government. During the White Terror, his belongings were delivered to his widow. A brief note was included, reading "To the widow of Lavoisier, who was falsely convicted".
Blinking experiment. An apocryphal story exists regarding Lavoisier's execution in which the scientist blinked his eyes to demonstrate that the head retained some consciousness after being severed. Some variants of the story include Joseph-Louis Lagrange as being the scientist to observe and record Lavoisier's blinking. This story was not recorded in contemporary accounts of Lavoisier's death, and the execution site was too removed from the public for Lagrange to have viewed Lavoisier's alleged experiment. The story likely originated in a 1990s Discovery Channel documentary about guillotines and then subsequently spread online, becoming what one source describes as an urban legend. Contributions to chemistry. Oxygen theory of combustion. Contrary to prevailing thought at the time, Lavoisier theorized that common air, or one of its components, combines with substances when they are burned. He demonstrated this through experiment. During late 1772 Lavoisier turned his attention to the phenomenon of combustion, the topic on which he was to make his most significant contribution to science. He reported the results of his first experiments on combustion in a note to the Academy on 20 October, in which he reported that when phosphorus burned, it combined with a large quantity of air to produce acid spirit of phosphorus, and that the phosphorus increased in weight on burning. In a second sealed note deposited with the academy a few weeks later (1 November) Lavoisier extended his observations and conclusions to the burning of sulfur and went on to add that "what is observed in the combustion of sulfur and phosphorus may well take place in the case of all substances that gain in weight by combustion and calcination: and I am persuaded that the increase in weight of metallic calces is due to the same cause."
Joseph Black's "fixed air". During 1773 Lavoisier determined to review thoroughly the literature on air, particularly "fixed air," and to repeat many of the experiments of other workers in the field. He published an account of this review in 1774 in a book entitled "Opuscules physiques et chimiques" (Physical and Chemical Essays). In the course of this review, he made his first full study of the work of Joseph Black, the Scottish chemist who had carried out a series of classic quantitative experiments on the mild and caustic alkalies. Black had shown that the difference between a mild alkali, for example, chalk (CaCO3), and the caustic form, for example, quicklime (CaO), lay in the fact that the former contained "fixed air," not common air fixed in the chalk, but a distinct chemical species, now understood to be carbon dioxide (CO2), which was a constituent of the atmosphere. Lavoisier recognized that Black's fixed air was identical with the air evolved when metal calces were reduced with charcoal and even suggested that the air which combined with metals on calcination and increased the weight might be Black's fixed air, that is, CO2.
Joseph Priestley. In the spring of 1774, Lavoisier carried out experiments on the calcination of tin and lead in sealed vessels, the results of which conclusively confirmed that the increase in weight of metals in combustion was due to combination with air. But the question remained about whether it was in combination with common atmospheric air or with only a part of atmospheric air. In October the English chemist Joseph Priestley visited Paris, where he met Lavoisier and told him of the air which he had produced by heating the red calx of mercury with a burning glass and which had supported combustion with extreme vigor. Priestley at this time was unsure of the nature of this gas, but he felt that it was an especially pure form of common air. Lavoisier carried out his own research on this peculiar substance. The result was his memoir "On the Nature of the Principle Which Combines with Metals during Their Calcination and Increases Their Weight", read to the Academy on 26 April 1775 (commonly referred to as the Easter Memoir). In the original memoir, Lavoisier showed that the mercury calx was a true metallic calx in that it could be reduced with charcoal, giving off Black's fixed air in the process. When reduced without charcoal, it gave off an air which supported respiration and combustion in an enhanced way. He concluded that this was just a pure form of common air and that it was the air itself "undivided, without alteration, without decomposition" which combined with metals on calcination.
After returning from Paris, Priestley took up once again his investigation of the air from mercury calx. His results now showed that this air was not just an especially pure form of common air but was "five or six times better than common air, for the purpose of respiration, inflammation, and ... every other use of common air". He called the air dephlogisticated air, as he thought it was common air deprived of its phlogiston. Since it was therefore in a state to absorb a much greater quantity of phlogiston given off by burning bodies and respiring animals, the greatly enhanced combustion of substances and the greater ease of breathing in this air were explained. Pioneer of stoichiometry. Lavoisier's researches included some of the first truly quantitative chemical experiments. He carefully weighed the reactants and products of a chemical reaction in a sealed glass vessel so that no gases could escape, which was a crucial step in the advancement of chemistry. In 1774, he showed that, although matter can change its state in a chemical reaction, the total mass of matter is the same at the end as at the beginning of every chemical change. Thus, for instance, if a piece of wood is burned to ashes, the total mass remains unchanged if gaseous reactants and products are included. Lavoisier's experiments supported the law of conservation of mass. In France it is taught as Lavoisier's Law and is paraphrased from a statement in his "Traité Élémentaire de Chimie": "Nothing is lost, nothing is created, everything is transformed." Mikhail Lomonosov (1711–1765) had previously expressed similar ideas in 1748 and proved them in experiments; others whose ideas pre-date the work of Lavoisier include Jean Rey (1583–1645), Joseph Black (1728–1799), and Henry Cavendish (1731–1810).
Chemical nomenclature. Lavoisier, together with Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude-Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François de Fourcroy, submitted a new program for the reforms of chemical nomenclature to the academy in 1787, for there was virtually no rational system of chemical nomenclature at this time. This work, titled "Méthode de nomenclature chimique" ("Method of Chemical Nomenclature", 1787), introduced a new system which was tied inextricably to Lavoisier's new oxygen theory of chemistry. The classical elements of earth, air, fire, and water were discarded, and instead some 33 substances which could not be decomposed into simpler substances by any known chemical means were provisionally listed as elements. The elements included light; caloric (matter of heat); the principles of oxygen, hydrogen, and azote (nitrogen); carbon; sulfur; phosphorus; the yet unknown "radicals" of muriatic acid (hydrochloric acid), boric acid, and "fluoric" acid; 17 metals; 5 earths (mainly oxides of yet unknown metals such as magnesia, baria, and strontia); three alkalies (potash, soda, and ammonia); and the "radicals" of 19 organic acids.
The acids, regarded in the new system as compounds of various elements with oxygen, were given names which indicated the element involved together with the degree of oxygenation of that element, for example sulfuric and sulfurous acids, phosphoric and phosphorous acids, nitric and nitrous acids, the "ic" termination indicating acids with a higher proportion of oxygen than those with the "ous" ending. Similarly, salts of the "ic" acids were given the terminal letters "ate," as in copper sulfate, whereas the salts of the "ous" acids terminated with the suffix "ite," as in copper sulfite. The total effect of the new nomenclature can be gauged by comparing the new name "copper sulfate" with the old term "vitriol of Venus." Lavoisier's new nomenclature spread throughout Europe and to the United States and became common use in the field of chemistry. This marked the beginning of the anti-phlogistic approach to the field. Chemical revolution and opposition.
Notable works. Easter memoir. The "official" version of Lavoisier's Easter Memoir appeared in 1778. In the intervening period, Lavoisier had ample time to repeat some of Priestley's latest experiments and perform some new ones of his own. In addition to studying Priestley's dephlogisticated air, he studied more thoroughly the residual air after metals had been calcined. He showed that this residual air supported neither combustion nor respiration and that approximately five volumes of this air added to one volume of the dephlogisticated air gave common atmospheric air. Common air was then a mixture of two distinct chemical species with quite different properties. Thus when the revised version of the Easter Memoir was published in 1778, Lavoisier no longer stated that the principle which combined with metals on calcination was just common air but "nothing else than the healthiest and purest part of the air" or the "eminently respirable part of the air". The same year he coined the name oxygen for this constituent of the air, from the Greek words meaning "acid former". He was struck by the fact that the combustion products of such nonmetals as sulfur, phosphorus, charcoal, and nitrogen were acidic. He held that all acids contained oxygen and that oxygen was therefore the acidifying principle.
Dismantling phlogiston theory. Lavoisier's chemical research between 1772 and 1778 was largely concerned with developing his own new theory of combustion. In 1783 he read to the academy his paper entitled "Réflexions sur le phlogistique" (Reflections on Phlogiston), a full-scale attack on the current phlogiston theory of combustion. That year Lavoisier also began a series of experiments on the composition of water which were to prove an important capstone to his combustion theory and win many converts to it. Many investigators had been experimenting with the combination of Henry Cavendish's inflammable air, now known as hydrogen, with "dephlogisticated air" (air in the process of combustion, now known to be oxygen) by electrically sparking mixtures of the gases. All of the researchers noted Cavendish's production of pure water by burning hydrogen in oxygen, but they interpreted the reaction in varying ways within the framework of phlogiston theory. Lavoisier learned of Cavendish's experiment in June 1783 via Charles Blagden (before the results were published in 1784), and immediately recognized water as the oxide of a "hydrogenerative" gas.
In cooperation with Laplace, Lavoisier synthesized water by burning jets of hydrogen and oxygen in a bell jar over mercury. The quantitative results were good enough to support the contention that water was not an element, as had been thought for over 2,000 years, but a compound of two gases, hydrogen and oxygen. The interpretation of water as a compound explained the inflammable air generated from dissolving metals in acids (hydrogen produced when water decomposes) and the reduction of calces by inflammable air (a combination of gas from calx with oxygen to form water). Despite these experiments, Lavoisier's antiphlogistic approach remained unaccepted by many other chemists. Lavoisier labored to provide definitive proof of the composition of water, attempting to use this in support of his theory. Working with Jean-Baptiste Meusnier, Lavoisier passed water through a red-hot iron gun barrel, allowing the oxygen to form an oxide with the iron and the hydrogen to emerge from the end of the pipe. He submitted his findings of the composition of water to the Académie des Sciences in April 1784, reporting his figures to eight decimal places.
He submitted his findings of the composition of water to the Académie des Sciences in April 1784, reporting his figures to eight decimal places. Opposition responded to this further experimentation by stating that Lavoisier continued to draw the incorrect conclusions and that his experiment demonstrated the displacement of phlogiston from iron by the combination of water with the metal. Lavoisier developed a new apparatus which used a pneumatic trough, a set of balances, a thermometer, and a barometer, all calibrated carefully. Thirty savants were invited to witness the decomposition and synthesis of water using this apparatus, convincing many who attended of the correctness of Lavoisier's theories. This demonstration established water as a compound of oxygen and hydrogen with great certainty for those who viewed it. The dissemination of the experiment, however, proved subpar, as it lacked the details to properly display the amount of precision taken in the measurements.
"Elementary Treatise of Chemistry". Lavoisier employed the new nomenclature in his "Traité élémentaire de chimie" ("Elementary Treatise on Chemistry"), published in 1789. This work represents the synthesis of Lavoisier's contribution to chemistry and can be considered the first modern textbook on the subject. The core of the work was the oxygen theory, and the work became a most effective vehicle for the transmission of the new doctrines. It presented a unified view of new theories of chemistry, contained a clear statement of the law of conservation of mass, and denied the existence of phlogiston. This text clarified the concept of an element as a substance that could not be broken down by any known method of chemical analysis and presented Lavoisier's theory of the formation of chemical compounds from elements. It remains a classic in the history of science. While many leading chemists of the time refused to accept Lavoisier's new ideas, demand for "Traité élémentaire" as a textbook in Edinburgh was sufficient to merit translation into English within about a year of its French publication. In any event, the "Traité élémentaire" was sufficiently sound to convince the next generation.
Physiological work. The relationship between combustion and respiration had long been recognized from the essential role which air played in both processes. Lavoisier was almost obliged, therefore, to extend his new theory of combustion to include the area of respiration physiology. His first memoirs on this topic were read to the Academy of Sciences in 1777, but his most significant contribution to this field was made in the winter of 1782–1783 in association with Laplace. The result of this work was published in a memoir, "On Heat." Lavoisier and Laplace designed an ice calorimeter apparatus for measuring the amount of heat given off during combustion or respiration. The outer shell of the calorimeter was packed with snow, which melted to maintain a constant temperature of around an inner shell filled with ice. By measuring the quantity of carbon dioxide and heat produced by confining a live guinea pig in this apparatus, and by comparing the amount of heat produced when sufficient carbon was burned in the ice calorimeter to produce the same amount of carbon dioxide as that which the guinea pig exhaled, they concluded that respiration was, in fact, a slow combustion process. Lavoisier stated, "la respiration est donc une combustion," that is, respiratory gas exchange is a combustion, like that of a candle burning.
This continuous slow combustion, which they supposed took place in the lungs, enabled the living animal to maintain its body temperature above that of its surroundings, thus accounting for the puzzling phenomenon of animal heat. Lavoisier continued these respiration experiments in 1789–1790 in cooperation with Armand Seguin. They designed an ambitious set of experiments to study the whole process of body metabolism and respiration using Seguin as a human guinea pig in the experiments. Their work was only partially completed and published because of the Revolution's disruption, but Lavoisier's pioneering work in this field inspired similar research on physiological processes for generations. Legacy. Lavoisier's fundamental contributions to chemistry were a result of a conscious effort to fit all experiments into the framework of a single theory. He established the consistent use of the chemical balance, used oxygen to overthrow the phlogiston theory, and developed a new system of chemical nomenclature which held that oxygen was an essential constituent of all acids (which later turned out to be erroneous).
Lavoisier also did early research in physical chemistry and thermodynamics in joint experiments with Laplace. They used a calorimeter to estimate the heat evolved per unit of carbon dioxide produced, eventually finding the same ratio for a flame and animals, indicating that animals produced energy by a type of combustion reaction. Lavoisier also contributed to early ideas on composition and chemical changes by stating the radical theory, believing that radicals, which function as a single group in a chemical process, combine with oxygen in reactions. He also introduced the possibility of allotropy in chemical elements when he discovered that diamond is a crystalline form of carbon. He was also responsible for the construction of the gasometer, an expensive instrument he used at his demonstrations. While he used his gasometer exclusively for these, he also created smaller, cheaper, more practical gasometers that worked with a sufficient degree of precision that more chemists could recreate. Overall, his contributions are considered the most important in advancing chemistry to the level reached in physics and mathematics during the 18th century.
Following his death, a collection comprising most of his scientific manuscripts and instruments was established by his relatives at the Château de la Canière in Puy-de-Dôme. Mount Lavoisier in New Zealand's Paparoa Range was named after him in 1970 by the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research. Awards and honours. During his lifetime, Lavoisier was awarded a gold medal by the King of France for his work on urban street lighting (1766), and was appointed to the French Academy of Sciences (1768). He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1775. Lavoisier's work was recognized as an International Historic Chemical Landmark by the American Chemical Society, Académie des sciences de L'institut de France and the Société Chimique de France in 1999. Antoine Laurent Lavoisier's Louis 1788 publication entitled "Méthode de Nomenclature Chimique", published with colleagues Louis-Bernard Guyton de Morveau, Claude Louis Berthollet, and Antoine François, comte de Fourcroy, was honored by a Citation for Chemical Breakthrough Award from the Division of History of Chemistry of the American Chemical Society, presented at the Académie des Sciences (Paris) in 2015.
A number of Lavoisier Medals have been named and given in Lavoisier's honour, by organizations including the Société chimique de France, the International Society for Biological Calorimetry, and the DuPont company He is also commemorated by the Franklin-Lavoisier Prize, marking the friendship of Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier and Benjamin Franklin. The prize, which includes a medal, is given jointly by the Fondation de la Maison de la Chimie in Paris, France and the Science History Institute in Philadelphia, PA, USA.
Hermann Kolbe Adolph Wilhelm Hermann Kolbe (27 September 1818 – 25 November 1884) was a German chemist and academic, and a major contributor to the birth of modern organic chemistry. He was a professor at Marburg and Leipzig. Kolbe was the first to apply the term synthesis in a chemical context, and contributed to the philosophical demise of vitalism through synthesis of the organic substance acetic acid from carbon disulfide, and also contributed to the development of structural theory. This was done via modifications to the idea of "radicals" and accurate prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols, and to the emerging array of organic reactions through his Kolbe electrolysis of carboxylate salts, the Kolbe-Schmitt reaction in the preparation of aspirin and the Kolbe nitrile synthesis. After studies with Wöhler and Bunsen, Kolbe was involved with the early internationalization of chemistry through work in London (with Frankland). He was elected to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and won the Royal Society of London's Davy Medal in the year of his death. Despite these accomplishments and his training important members of the next generation of chemists (including Zaitsev, Curtius, Beckmann, Graebe, Markovnikov, and others), Kolbe is best remembered for editing the for more than a decade, in which his vituperative essays on Kekulé's structure of benzene, van't Hoff's theory on the origin of chirality and Baeyer's reforms of nomenclature were personally critical and linguistically violent. Kolbe died of a heart attack in Leipzig at age 66, six years after the death of his wife, Charlotte.
Life. Kolbe was born in Elliehausen, near Göttingen, Kingdom of Hanover (Germany) as the eldest son of a Protestant pastor. At the age of 13, he entered the Göttingen Gymnasium, residing at the home of one of the professors. He obtained the leaving certificate (the Abitur) six years later. He had become passionate about the study of chemistry, matriculating at the University of Göttingen in the spring of 1838 in order to study with the famous chemist Friedrich Wöhler. In 1842, he became an assistant to Robert Bunsen at the Philipps-Universität Marburg. He took his doctoral degree in 1843 at the same university. A new opportunity arose in 1845, when he became assistant to Lyon Playfair at the new "Museum of Economic Geology" in London and a close friend of Edward Frankland. From 1847, he was engaged in editing the "Handwörterbuch der reinen und angewandten Chemie" ("Dictionary of Pure and Applied Chemistry") edited by Justus von Liebig, Wöhler, and Johann Christian Poggendorff, and he also wrote an important textbook. In 1851, Kolbe succeeded Bunsen as professor of chemistry at Marburg and, in 1865, he was called to the Universität Leipzig. In 1864, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. He was elected as a member of the American Philosophical Society in 1874.
In 1853, he married Charlotte, the daughter of General-Major Wilhelm von Bardeleben. His wife died in 1876 after 23 years of happy marriage. They had four children. Work in chemical research. As late as the 1840s, and despite Friedrich Wöhler's synthesis of urea in 1828, some chemists still believed in the doctrine of vitalism, according to which a special life-force was necessary to create "organic" (i.e., in its original meaning, biologically derived) compounds. Kolbe promoted the idea that organic compounds could be derived from substances clearly sourced from outside this "organic" context, directly or indirectly, by substitution processes. (Hence, while by modern definitions, he was converting one organic molecule to another, by the parlance of his era, he was converting "inorganic"—"anorganisch"—substances into "organic" ones only thought accessible through vital processes.) He validated his theory by converting carbon disulfide (CS2) to acetic acid () in several steps (1843–45). Kolbe also introduced a modified idea of structural radicals, so contributing to the development of structural theory. A dramatic success came when his theoretical prediction of the existence of secondary and tertiary alcohols was confirmed by the synthesis of the first of these classes of organic molecules. Kolbe was the first person to use the word synthesis in its present-day meaning, and contributed a number of new chemical reactions.
In particular, Kolbe developed procedures for the electrolysis of the salts of fatty and other carboxylic acids (Kolbe electrolysis) and prepared salicylic acid, a building block of aspirin in a process called Kolbe synthesis or Kolbe-Schmitt reaction. His method for the synthesis of nitriles is called the Kolbe nitrile synthesis, and with Edward Frankland he found that nitriles can be hydrolyzed to the corresponding acids. In addition to his own bench research and scholarly and editorial work, Kolbe oversaw student research at Leipzig and especially at Marburg; students spending time under his tutelage included Peter Griess, Aleksandr Mikhailovich Zaitsev (known for Zaitsev's rule predicting the product composition of elimination reactions), Theodor Curtius (discoverer of diazo compounds, hydrazines, and the Curtius rearrangement), Ernst Otto Beckmann (discoverer of the Beckmann rearrangement), Carl Graebe (discoverer of alizarin), Oscar Loew, Constantin Fahlberg, Nikolai Menshutkin, Vladimir Markovnikov (first to describe carbocycles smaller and larger than cyclohexane, and known for Markovnikov's rule describing addition reactions to alkenes), Jacob Volhard, Ludwig Mond, Alexander Crum Brown (first to describe the double bond of ethylene), Maxwell Simpson, and Frederick Guthrie.
Work as journal editor. Besides his work for periodicals he wrote numerous books Kolbe served for more than a decade as what, in modern terms, would be understood the senior editor of the ("Journal of practical chemistry", from 1870 to 1884), Kolbe was sometimes so severely critical of the work of others, especially after about 1874, that some wondered whether he might have been suffering a mental illness. He was intolerant of what he regarded as loose speculation parading as theory, and sought through his writings to save his beloved science of chemistry from what he regarded as the scourge of modern structural theory. His rejection of structural chemistry, especially the theories of the structure of benzene by August Kekulé, the theory of the asymmetric carbon atom by J.H. van't Hoff, and the reform of chemical nomenclature by Adolf von Baeyer, was expressed in his vituperative articles in the "Journal für Praktische Chemie". Some translated quotes illustrate his manner of articulating the deep conflict between his interpretation of chemistry and that of the structural chemists: «"...Baeyer is an excellent experimentor, but he is only an empiricist, lacking sense and capability, and his interpretations of his experiments show particular deficiency in his familiarity with the principles of true science...»"The violence of his language worked to limit his posthumous reputation.
Amitabh Bachchan Amitabh Bachchan (; 11 October 1942) is an Indian actor who works in Hindi cinema. He is often considered one of the greatest, most accomplished and commercially successful actors in the history of Indian cinema. With a cinematic career spanning over five decades, he has played in over 200 films. Bachchan is often hailed as the "Shahenshah" of Bollywood, Sadi Ke Mahanayak (translated as "Greatest actor of the century" in Hindi), Star of the Millennium, or simply Big B. His dominance in the Indian film industry during the 1970s–80s led the French director François Truffaut to describe it as a "one-man industry". He is a recipient of several accolades including six National Film Awards and sixteen Filmfare Awards.
Bachchan has won numerous accolades in his career, including record four National Film Awards in Best Actor category and many awards at international film festivals and award ceremonies. He has won sixteen Filmfare Awards and is the most nominated performer in any major acting category at Filmfare with 34 nominations in Best Actor and 42 nominations overall. The Government of India honoured him with the Padma Shri in 1984, the Padma Bhushan in 2001, the Padma Vibhushan in 2015, and India's highest award in the field of cinema, the Dadasaheb Phalke Award in 2018 for his contributions to the arts. The Government of France honoured him with its highest civilian honour, Officer of the Legion of Honour, in 2007 for his exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond. In addition to acting, Bachchan has worked as a playback singer, film producer, and television presenter. He has hosted several seasons of the game show "Kaun Banega Crorepati", India's version of the game show franchise, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". He also entered politics for a time in the 1980s. Bachchan has also been involved in several humanitarian works and he is a leading brand endorser in India. Beyond the Indian subcontinent, he acquired a large overseas following of the South Asian diaspora, as well as others, in markets including Africa (South Africa, Eastern Africa, and Mauritius), the Middle East (especially Egypt and the UAE), the United Kingdom, Russia, Central Asia, the Caribbean (Guyana, Suriname, and Trinidad and Tobago), Oceania (Fiji, Australia, and New Zealand), Canada and the United States. Bachchan was voted the "greatest star of stage or screen" in the BBC "Your Millennium" online poll in 1999. In October 2003, "Time" magazine dubbed Bachchan the "Star of the Millennium".
Early life and family. Bachchan was born on 11 October 1942 in Allahabad (now Prayagraj) to Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and social activist Teji Bachchan. Harivansh Rai Bachchan was an Awadhi Hindu Kayastha, who was fluent in Awadhi, Hindi and Urdu. Harivansh's ancestors came from a village called Babupatti, in the Raniganj tehsil, in the Pratapgarh district, in the present-day state of Uttar Pradesh, in India. Teji Bachchan was a Punjabi Sikh Khatri from Lyallpur, Punjab, British India (present-day Faisalabad, Punjab, Pakistan). Bachchan has a younger brother, Ajitabh, who is five years younger than him. Bachchan's parents were initially going to name him "Inquilaab" (Hindustani for "Revolution"), inspired by the phrase "Inquilab Zindabad" ("Long live the revolution") popularly used during the Indian independence struggle; the name "Amitabh" was suggested to his father by poet Sumitranandan Pant. Although his surname was Srivastava, Amitabh's father, who opposed the caste system, had adopted the pen name Bachchan ("child-like" in colloquial Hindi), under which he published all of his works. When his father was looking to get him admitted to a school, he and Bachchan's mother decided the family's name should be Bachchan instead of Shrivastava. It is with this last name that Amitabh debuted in films and used for all other practical purposes, Bachchan has become the surname for all of his immediate family. Bachchan's father died in 2003, and his mother in 2007.
Bachchan's secondary education was at Boys' High School & College in Allahabad and Sherwood College in Nainital. He attended Kirori Mal College at the University of Delhi in Delhi. He graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree from Kirori Mal College in 1962. When Bachchan finished his studies, his father approached Prithviraj Kapoor, the founder of Prithvi Theatre and patriarch of the Kapoor acting family, to see if there was an opening for him, but Kapoor offered no encouragement. Bachchan was a friend of Rajiv Gandhi and Sanjay Gandhi, before he became an actor. He used to spend time with them when he was a resident in New Delhi. Bachchan's family were very close to the Nehru-Gandhi family of politicians. When Sonia Gandhi first came to India from Italy before her marriage, Bachchan had received her at the Palam International Airport on 13 January 1968. She spent 48 days at Bachchan's house with his parents before her wedding to Rajiv. In the late 1960s, Bachchan applied to be a newsreader for All India Radio in Delhi, but "failed the audition". He became a business executive for "Bird & Company" in Kolkata (Calcutta), and worked in theatre before starting his film career. It is thought that his mother might have had some influence on his choice of career, for she always insisted that he should "take centre stage".
Acting career. Early career (1969–1972). Bachchan made his film debut in 1969, as a voice narrator in Mrinal Sen's National Award–winning film "Bhuvan Shome". His first acting role was as one of the seven protagonists in the film "Saat Hindustani", directed by Khwaja Ahmad Abbas and featuring Utpal Dutt, Anwar Ali (brother of comedian Mehmood), Madhu and Jalal Agha. "Anand" (1971) followed, in which Bachchan starred alongside Rajesh Khanna. His role as a doctor with a cynical view of life garnered Bachchan his first Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. He then played his first antagonist role as an infatuated lover-turned-murderer in "Parwana" (1971). Following Parwana were several films, including "Reshma Aur Shera" (1971). During this time, he made a guest appearance in the film "Guddi" which starred his future wife Jaya Bhaduri. He narrated part of the film "Bawarchi". In 1972, he made an appearance in the road action comedy "Bombay to Goa" directed by S. Ramanathan which was moderately successful. Many of Bachchan's films during this early period did not do well. His only film with Mala Sinha, "Sanjog" (1972) was also a box office failure.
Rise to prominence (1973–1974). Bachchan was struggling, seen as a "failed newcomer" who, by the age of 30, had only two successes (as a lead in "Bombay to Goa" and a supporting role in "Anand"). Bachchan was then discovered by screenwriter duo Salim–Javed, consisting of Salim Khan and Javed Akhtar. Salim Khan wrote the story, screenplay and script of "Zanjeer" (1973), and conceived the "angry young man" persona of the lead role. Javed Akhtar came on board as co-writer, and Prakash Mehra, who saw the script as potentially groundbreaking, as the film's director. However, they were struggling to find an actor for the lead "angry young man" role; it was turned down by several actors, owing to it going against the "romantic hero" image dominant in the industry at the time. Salim-Javed "saw his talent, which most makers didn't. He was exceptional, a genius actor who was in films that weren't good." According to Salim Khan, they "strongly felt that Amitabh was the ideal casting for "Zanjeer"". Salim Khan introduced Bachchan to Prakash Mehra, and Salim-Javed insisted that Bachchan be cast for the role.
"Zanjeer" was a crime film with violent action, in sharp contrast to the romantically themed films that had generally preceded it, and it established Amitabh in a new persona—the "angry young man" of Bollywood. He earned his first Filmfare Award nomination for Best Actor, with "Filmfare" later considering this one of the most iconic performances in Bollywood history. The film was a blockbuster and one of the highest-grossing films of that year, breaking Bachchan's dry spell at the box office and making him a star. It was the first of many collaborations between Salim-Javed and Amitabh; the duo wrote many of their subsequent scripts with Bachchan in mind for the lead role, and insisted on him being cast for their later films. Salim Khan also introduced Bachchan to director Manmohan Desai with whom he formed a long and successful association, alongside Prakash Mehra and Yash Chopra. Eventually, Bachchan became one of the most successful leading men of the film industry. His portrayal of the wronged hero fighting a crooked system and circumstances of deprivation in films like "Zanjeer", "Deewaar", "Trishul", "Kaala Patthar" and "Shakti" resonated with the masses of the time, especially the youth who harboured a simmering discontent owing to social ills such as poverty, hunger, unemployment, corruption, social inequality and the brutal excesses of The Emergency. This led to Bachchan being dubbed as the "angry young man", a journalistic catchphrase that became a metaphor for the dormant rage, frustration, restlessness, sense of rebellion and anti-establishment disposition of an entire generation, prevalent in the 1970s.
The year 1973 was also when he married Jaya, and around this time they appeared in several films together: not only "Zanjeer" but also subsequent films such as "Abhimaan", which was released around the same time after their wedding and was also successful at the box office. Later, he played the role of Vikram, once again along with Rajesh Khanna, in the film "Namak Haraam", a social drama directed by Hrishikesh Mukherjee and addressing themes of friendship. The film proved to be a superhit and Bachchan won his second Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. The flow of successes continued for Bachchan in 1974. He began the year with a guest appearance in Dulal Guha's blockbuster social drama film "Dost". After this, he starred in Aravind Sen's drama film "Kasauti" and Narendra Bedi's crime thriller "Benaam", both of which ended up as moderate commercial successes. Bachchan's next release was Manoj Kumar's fourth directional venture "Roti Kapada Aur Makaan". The film opened to excellent response all over the country, eventually taking top spot at the box office that year and emerging an "All Time Blockbuster" as well as Bachchan's biggest upto that point of time. Before the end of year, he delivered a hit in Ravi Tandon's crime thriller "Majboor". Written by Salim-Javed, it also had Pran and Parveen Babi in the lead.
Superstardom (1975–1988). In 1975, Bachchan starred in a variety of film genres, from the comedy "Chupke Chupke" and the crime drama "Faraar" to the romantic drama "Mili". This was also the year in which he starred in two films regarded as important in Hindi cinema history, both written by Salim-Javed, who again insisted on casting Bachchan. The first was "Deewaar", directed by Yash Chopra, where he worked with Shashi Kapoor, Nirupa Roy, Parveen Babi, and Neetu Singh. The film emerged a blockbuster at the box office and earned him another Filmfare nomination for Best Actor. Indiatimes ranks "Deewaar" among the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". The other, released on 15 August 1975, was "Sholay", which became the highest-grossing film ever in India at the time, in which Bachchan played the role of Jaidev. "Deewaar" and "Sholay" are often credited with exalting Bachchan to the heights of superstardom, two years after he became a star with "Zanjeer", and consolidating his domination of the industry throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In 1999, BBC India declared "Sholay" the "Film of the Millennium" and, like "Deewaar", it has been cited by "Indiatimes Movies" as among the "Top 25 Must See Bollywood Films". In that same year, the judges of the 50th annual Filmfare Awards awarded it with the special distinction award called the Filmfare Best Film of 50 Years.
In 1976, he was cast by Yash Chopra in the romantic musical "Kabhi Kabhie". Bachchan starred as a young poet, Amit Malhotra, who falls deeply in love with a beautiful young girl named Pooja (Rakhee Gulzar) who ends up marrying someone else (Shashi Kapoor). The film was notable for portraying Bachchan as a romantic hero, a far cry from his "angry young man" roles like "Zanjeer" and "Deewaar". Despite its heavy theme, "Kabhi Kabhie" went on to become a superhit. Its soundtrack composed by Khayyam and lyrics written by Sahir Ludhianvi dominated the year-end annual list of Binaca Geetmala and was one of the best-selling Hindi film albums of the 1970s. Bachchan was again nominated for the Filmfare Best Actor Award for his role in the film. That same year, he played a double role in another hit "Adalat" as father and son. In 1977, he won his first Filmfare Best Actor Award for his performance in "Amar Akbar Anthony", in which he played the third lead opposite Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor as Anthony Gonsalves. The film was the highest-grossing film of that year. His other major hits that year include "Parvarish" and "Khoon Pasina".
He once again resumed double roles in films such as "Kasme Vaade" (1978) as Amit and Shankar and "Don" (1978) playing the characters of Don, a leader of an underworld gang and his look-alike Vijay. His performance won him his second Filmfare Best Actor Award. He also gave towering performances in Yash Chopra's " Trishul" and Prakash Mehra's "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar" both of which earned him further Filmfare Best Actor nominations. 1978 is arguably considered his most successful year at the box office since all of his six releases in the same year, namely "Muqaddar Ka Sikandar", "Trishul", "Don", "Kasme Vaade", "Ganga Ki Saugandh" and "Besharam" were box office successes, with the former three being the consecutive highest-grossing films of the year, a rare feat in Hindi cinema. In 1979, Bachchan starred in "Suhaag" which was the highest-earning film of that year. In the same year, he also enjoyed critical acclaim and commercial success with films like "Jurmana", "Mr. Natwarlal" and "Kaala Patthar". He was required to use his singing voice for the first time in a song from the film "Mr. Natwarlal" in which he starred with Rekha. Bachchan's performance in the film saw him nominated for both the Filmfare Award for Best Actor and the Filmfare Award for Best Male Playback Singer. He also received a Best Actor nomination for "Kaala Patthar" and then went on to be nominated again in 1980 for the Raj Khosla directed superhit film "Dostana", in which he starred opposite Shatrughan Sinha and Zeenat Aman. His other releases of 1980, "Do Aur Do Paanch" and "Shaan" underperformed with the latter ending its run with average numbers owing to huge costs, but Vijay Anand's "Ram Balram" alongside Dharmendra was a box office hit.
This changed in 1981 with back-to-back huge blockbusters in "Naseeb" and "Laawaris", both of which were among the top 5 highest-grossing films of 1981. Bachchan also had two hits, "Yaarana" and "Kaalia" and a moderately successful venture "Barsaat Ki Ek Raat" the same year and received praise for his performance in Yash Chopra's romantic drama "Silsila", which attracted considerable attention from the media when it was in production due to its casting. Although the film did not do well commercially, it gained cult status in later years and is considered one of Chopra's best works ever. In 1982, he played double roles in the musical "Satte Pe Satta" and action drama" Desh Premee" which succeeded at the box office along with highly successful ventures like action comedy "Namak Halaal", action drama "Khud-Daar" and the critically acclaimed films "Shakti" and "Bemisal". On 26 July 1982, while filming a fight scene with co-actor Puneet Issar for "Coolie", Bachchan had a near-fatal intestinal injury. Bachchan was performing his stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground.
Bachchan was performing his stunts in the film and one scene required him to fall onto a table and then on the ground. However, as he jumped towards the table, the corner of the table struck his abdomen, resulting in a splenic rupture from which he lost a significant amount of blood. He required an emergency splenectomy and remained critically ill in the hospital for many months, at times close to death. There were long queues of well-wishing fans outside the hospital where he was recuperating; the public response included prayers in places of worship and offers to sacrifice limbs to save him. Nevertheless, he resumed filming later that year after a long period of recuperation. The director, Manmohan Desai, altered the ending of "Coolie": Bachchan's character was originally intended to have been killed off; but, after the change of script, the character lived in the end. Desai felt it would have been inappropriate for the man who had just fended off death in real life to be killed on screen. The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury.
The footage of the fight scene is frozen at the critical moment, and a caption appears onscreen marking it as the instant of the actor's injury. The film was released in 1983, and partly due to the huge publicity of Bachchan's accident, it emerged an "All Time Blockbuster" and top-grossing film of the year. He then played a triple role in S. Ramanathan's action drama "Mahaan", which proved to be a flop. Other releases that year, "Nastik" and "Pukar" were average fares, but "Andhaa Kaanoon" (in which he had a small role) was a blockbuster. During a stint in politics from 1984 to 1987, five of his completed films were released, out of which four emerged major successes, these were - Manmohan Desai's action film "Mard" (1985), which proved to be a massive blockbuster, followed by superhits, "Sharaabi" (1984) and "Geraftaar" (1985) and a hit film "Aakhree Raasta" (1986). After his stint in politics ended, Bachchan returned to films in 1988, playing the title role in Tinnu Anand's vigilante action film "Shahenshah", which opened to bumper response all over the nation and emerged a huge hit as well as the second highest-grossing film of the year.
Health issues. He was later diagnosed with Myasthenia gravis. The illness weakened him both mentally and physically. At this time he became pessimistic, expressing concern with how a new film would be received, and stating before every release, "Yeh film to flop hogi!" ("This film will flop"). Career fluctuations, sabbatical, business ventures and acting comeback (1989–1999). After the success of his comeback film however, Bachchan's star power began to wane as his subsequent releases like "Gangaa Jamunaa Saraswati" (1988), "Jaadugar", "Toofan" and "Main Azaad Hoon" (all released in 1989) did not do well commercially. He did gain success during this period with superhits in K.C. Bokadia's crime drama film "Aaj Ka Arjun" (1990) and Mukul Anand's masala film "Hum" (1991), but this momentum was short-lived and his string of box office failures continued with "Ajooba", "Indrajeet" and "Akayla". Notably, despite a decline in number of hits, it was during this era that Bachchan won his first National Film Award for Best Actor for his performance as a Mafia don in the cult film "Agneepath" (1990).
After the release of Mukul Anand's moderately successful, but critically acclaimed 1992 epic film "Khuda Gawah", Bachchan announced his semi retirement from the film industry. With the exception of the delayed release "Insaniyat" (1994), Bachchan did not appear in any films for five years. He turned producer during his temporary retirement period, setting up Amitabh Bachchan Corporation, Ltd. (ABCL) in 1996. ABCL's strategy was to introduce products and services covering an entire cross-section of India's entertainment industry. ABCL's operations were mainstream commercial film production and distribution, audio cassettes and video discs, production and marketing of television software, and celebrity and event management. Soon after the company was launched in 1996, the first film it produced was "Tere Mere Sapne", which was a box office hit and launched the careers of actors like Arshad Warsi and southern film star Simran. In 1997, Bachchan attempted to make his acting comeback with the film "Mrityudata", produced by ABCL. Though "Mrityudaata" attempted to reprise Bachchan's earlier success as an action hero, the film was a failure both financially and critically. ABCL was the main sponsor of the "1996 Miss World beauty pageant", Bangalore, but lost millions. The fiasco and the consequent legal battles surrounding ABCL and various entities after the event, coupled with the fact that ABCL was reported to have overpaid most of its top-level managers, eventually led to its financial and operational collapse in 1997. The company went into administration and was later declared a failed company by the Indian Industries board. The Bombay High Court, in April 1999, restrained Bachchan from selling off his Bombay bungalow 'Prateeksha' and two flats until the pending loan recovery cases of Canara Bank were disposed of. Bachchan had, however, pleaded that he had mortgaged his bungalow to raise funds for his company.
Bachchan attempted to revive his acting career, and eventually had commercial success with "Bade Miyan Chote Miyan" (1998) and "Major Saab" (1998), and received positive reviews for "Sooryavansham" (1999), but other films such as "Lal Baadshah" (1999) and "Kohram" (1999) were box office failures. Return to success (2000–present). In 2000, Bachchan appeared in Aditya Chopra's romantic blockbuster "Mohabbatein". He played a stern, elder figure who rivalled the character of Shahrukh Khan. His role won him his third Filmfare Award for Best Supporting Actor. Other hits followed, with Bachchan appearing as an older family patriarch in "" (2001), "Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham..." (2001) and "Baghban" (2003). As an actor, he continued to perform in a range of characters, receiving critical praise for his performances in "Aks" (2001), "Aankhen" (2002), "Kaante" (2002), "Khakee" (2004), "Dev" (2004) and "Veer-Zaara" (2004). His performance in "Aks" won him his first Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. One project that did particularly well for Bachchan was Sanjay Leela Bhansali's "Black" (2005). The film starred Bachchan as an ageing teacher of a deaf-blind girl and followed their relationship. His performance was unanimously praised by critics and audiences and won him his second National Film Award for Best Actor, his fourth Filmfare Best Actor Award, and his second Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor. Taking advantage of this resurgence, Amitabh began endorsing a variety of products and services, appearing in many television and billboard advertisements. In 2005 and 2006, he starred with his son Abhishek in the films "Bunty Aur Babli" (2005), the "Godfather" adaptation "Sarkar" (2005), and "Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna" (2006). All of them were successful at the box office. His later releases in 2006 and early 2007 were "Baabul" (2006), "Ekalavya" (2007) and "Nishabd" (2007), which failed to do well at the box office but his performances in each of them were praised by critics.
In May 2007, two of his films, the romantic comedy "Cheeni Kum" and the multi-starrer action drama "Shootout at Lokhandwala", were released. "Shootout at Lokhandwala" did well at the box office and was declared a hit in India, while "Cheeni Kum" picked up after a slow start and was declared a semi-hit by the end of its theatrical run. A remake of his biggest hit, "Sholay" (1975), entitled "Ram Gopal Varma Ki Aag", released in August of that same year and proved to be a major commercial failure in addition to its poor critical reception. The year also marked Bachchan's first appearance in an English-language film, Rituparno Ghosh's "The Last Lear", co-starring Arjun Rampal and Preity Zinta. The film premiered at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival on 9 September 2007. He received positive reviews from critics who hailed his performance as his best since "Black". Bachchan was slated to play a supporting role in his first international film, "Shantaram", directed by Mira Nair and starring Hollywood actor Johnny Depp in the lead. The film was due to begin filming in February 2008 but due to the writer's strike, was pushed to September 2008. The film is currently "shelved" indefinitely.
Vivek Sharma's "Bhoothnath", in which he plays the title role as a ghost, was released on 9 May 2008. "Sarkar Raj", the sequel of the 2005 film "Sarkar", released in June 2008 and received a positive response at the box office. "Paa", which was released at the end of 2009 was a highly anticipated project as it saw him playing his own son Abhishek's Progeria-affected 13-year-old son, and it opened to favourable reviews, particularly towards Bachchan's performance and was one of the top-grossing films of 2009. It won him his third National Film Award for Best Actor and fifth Filmfare Best Actor Award. In 2010, he debuted in Malayalam film through "Kandahar", directed by Major Ravi and co-starring Mohanlal. The film was based on the hijacking incident of the Indian Airlines Flight 814. Bachchan declined any remuneration for this film. In 2011 he played an aged retired former gangster in "Bbuddah... Hoga Terra Baap" who protects his son Sonu Sood who is an honest daring police officer from a notorious gangster Prakash Raj who unknowingly hired the latter to perform a contract killing not knowing that the police officer is the gangster's son. Despite significant expectations, it had poor returns at the box office.
In 2013, he made his Hollywood debut in "The Great Gatsby" making a special appearance opposite Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire. In 2014, he played the role of the friendly ghost in the sequel "Bhoothnath Returns". The next year, he played the role of a grumpy father experiencing chronic constipation in the critically acclaimed "Piku" which was also one of the biggest hits of 2015. A review in "Daily News and Analysis" (DNA) summarised Bachchan's performance as "The heart and soul of Piku clearly belong to Amitabh Bachchan who is in his elements. His performance in Piku, without doubt, finds a place among the top 10 in his illustrious career." Rachel Saltz wrote for "The New York Times", "Piku", an offbeat Hindi comedy, would have you contemplate the intestines and mortality of one Bhashkor Banerji and the actor who plays him, Amitabh Bachchan. Bhashkor's life and conversation may revolve around his constipation and fussy hypochondria, but there's no mistaking the scene-stealing energy that Mr. Bachchan, India's erstwhile Angry Young Man, musters for his new role of Cranky Old Man." Well known Indian critic Rajeev Masand wrote on his website, "Bachchan is pretty terrific as Bhashkor, who reminds you of that oddball uncle that you nevertheless have a soft spot for. He bickers with the maids, harrows his hapless helper, and expects Piku to stay unmarried so she can attend to him. At one point, to ward off a possible suitor, he casually mentions that his daughter isn't a virgin; that she's financially independent and sexually independent too. Bachchan embraces the character's many idiosyncrasies, never once slipping into caricature while all along delivering big laughs thanks to his spot-on comic timing." "The Guardian" summed up, "Bachchan seizes upon his cranky character part, making Bashkor as garrulously funny in his theories on caste and marriage as his system is backed-up." The performance won Bachchan his fourth National Film Award for Best Actor and his third Filmfare Critics Award for Best Actor.
In 2016, he appeared in the women-centric courtroom drama film "Pink" which was highly praised by critics and with an increasingly good word of mouth, was a resounding success at the domestic and overseas box office. Bachchan's performance in the film received acclaim. According to Raja Sen of Rediff.com, "Amitabh Bachchan, a retired lawyer with bipolar disorder, takes up cudgels on behalf of the girls, delivering courtroom blows with pugilistic grace. As we know from Prakash Mehra movies, in each life some Bachchan must fall. The girls hang on to him with incredulous desperation, and he bats for them with all he has. At one point Meenal hangs by Bachchan's elbow, words entirely unnecessary. Bachchan towers through Pink – the way he bellows "et cetera" is alone worth having the heavy-hitter at play—but there are softer moments like one where he appears to have dozed off in court, or where he lays his head by his convalescent wife's bedside and needs his hair ruffled and his conviction validated." Writing for "Hindustan Times", noted film critic and author Anupama Chopra said of Bachchan's performance, "A special salute to Amitabh Bachchan, who imbues his character with a tragic majesty. Bachchan towers in every sense, but without a hint of showboating. Meena Iyer of "The Times of India" wrote, "The performances are pitch-perfect with Bachchan leading the way. Writing for NDTV, Troy Ribeiro of Indo-Asian News Service (IANS) stated, "Amitabh Bachchan as Deepak Sehgall, the aged defence lawyer, shines as always, in a restrained, but powerful performance. His histrionics come primarily in the form of his well-modulated baritone, conveying his emotions and of course, from the well-written lines." Mike McCahill of The Guardian remarked, "Among an electric ensemble, Taapsee Pannu, Kirti Kulhari and Andrea Tariang give unwavering voice to the girls' struggles; Amitabh Bachchan brings his moral authority to bear as their sole legal ally.
In 2017, he appeared in the third instalment of the "Sarkar" film series: Ram Gopal Varma's "Sarkar 3". That year, he started filming for the swashbuckling action-adventure film "Thugs of Hindostan" with Aamir Khan, Katrina Kaif and Fatima Sana Shaikh which released in November 2018. He co-starred with Rishi Kapoor in "102 Not Out", a comedy drama film directed by Umesh Shukla based on a Gujarati play of the same name written by Saumya Joshi. This film released in May 2018 and reunited him with Kapoor onscreen after a gap of 27 years. In 2019, Bachchan appeared in Sujoy Ghosh's mystery thriller "Badla". The film did a lifetime business of worldwide to emerge a box office hit. The following year, he co-starred alongside Ayushmann Khurana in Shoojit Sircar's comedy drama "Gulabo Sitabo", which won him Filmfare Award for Best Actor (Critics). He then collaborated with Emraan Hashmi for "Chehre" (2021), a critical and commercial failure. The next year, Bachchan had five releases, out of which Ayan Mukerji's highly anticipated fantasy action-adventure film "" proved to be a hit as well as the highest-grossing Hindi film of 2022 while "Jhund", "Runway 34" and "Uunchai" didn't do well at ticket counters, but met with critical acclaim. In 2024, he played Ashwatthama in Nag Ashwin's "Kalki 2898 AD", marking his Telugu debut. Made on a budget of , it opened to positive reception with Bachchan receiving immense praise for his performance. At the box office, it grossed more than to emerge a superhit as well as the second highest-grossing Indian film of 2024.
Other works. Television appearances. In 2000, Bachchan hosted the first season of "Kaun Banega Crorepati" ("KBC"), the Indian adaptation of the British television game show, "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?". The show was well received. A second season followed in 2005 but its run was cut short by Star Plus when Bachchan fell ill in 2006. He then returned to host the fourth season, and has hosted the show since. In 2009, Bachchan hosted the third season of the reality show "Bigg Boss". In 2010, Bachchan hosted the fourth season of "KBC". The fifth season started on 15 August 2011 and ended on 17 November 2011. The show became a massive hit with audiences and broke many TRP Records. CNN IBN awarded Indian of the Year- Entertainment to Team KBC and Bachchan. The show also grabbed all the major Awards for its category. The sixth season was also hosted by Bachchan, commencing on 7 September 2012, broadcast on Sony TV and received the highest number of viewers thus far. In 2014, he debuted in the fictional Sony Entertainment Television TV series titled "Yudh" playing the lead role of a businessman battling in both his personal and professional lives.
Voice acting. Bachchan is known for his deep, baritone voice. He has been a narrator, a playback singer, and a presenter for numerous programmes. Some prominent films featuring his narration are Satyajit Ray's 1977 film "Shatranj Ke Khiladi" and Ashutosh Gowarikar's 2001 film "Lagaan". He also has done voice-over work for the following movies: Business investments. Around 1994, Bachchan started Amitabh Bachchan Corporation Ltd (ABCL), an event management, production and distribution company. But the company fell into debt with a fiasco and went into bankruptcy, subsequently Bachchan became nearly bankrupt. The reasons for this debacle were films that fared poorly at the box office such as "Mrityudata", "Major Saab" (produced by this organisation), and Miss World 1996 which was organised-managed by ABCL. Due to this he began work for TV, and asked for work to Yash Chopra. Once he said that 'it was the darkest time for him'. He has invested in many upcoming business ventures. In 2013, he bought a 10% stake in Just Dial from which he made a gain of 4600 per cent. He holds a 3.4% equity in Stampede Capital, a financial technology firm specialising in cloud computing for financial markets. The Bachchan family also bought shares worth $252,000 in Meridian Tech, a consulting company in the U.S. Recently they made their first overseas investment in Ziddu.com, a cloud-based content distribution platform. Bachchan was named in the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, leaked confidential documents relating to offshore investment.
Political career. In 1984, Bachchan took a break from acting and briefly entered politics in support of a long-time family friend, Rajiv Gandhi. He contested the Allahabad's (presently Prayagraj Lok Sabha constituency) seat for the 8th Lok Sabha against H. N. Bahuguna, former Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. With 68.2% of the votes in his favour, he won by one of the highest victory margins ever in Indian elections. In 1987, "Indian Express" said his brother Ajitabh Bachchan owned an apartment in Switzerland, giving rise to speculations about his involvement in the "Bofors scandal", revealed in the year before. Bachchan resigned from his seat in July 1987. Ajitabh Bachchan sued Swedish newspaper "Dagens Nyheter" for linking him to Bofors payments in 1990 and won damages in the United Kingdom. Sten Lindstrom, the Swedish police chief who had investigated the case, said in 2012 that "Indian investigators planted the Bachchan angle on" "Dagens Nyheter". Bachchan's old friend, Amar Singh, helped him during the financial crisis caused by the failure of his company, ABCL. Thereafter Bachchan started supporting the Samajwadi Party, the political party to which Amar Singh belonged. Jaya Bachchan joined the Samajwadi Party and represented the party as an MP in the Rajya Sabha. Bachchan appeared in advertisements and political campaigns for the party. His claim that he too was a farmer in the advertisements was questioned in court.

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