Editing Adam Smith (section)

===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 [[Pound sterling|£]]300 per year (plus expenses) along with a £300 per year pension; roughly twice his former income as a teacher.<ref name="Buchholz 1999 16" /> 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".<ref name="Buchholz 1999 16" /> After touring the south of France, the group moved to [[Geneva]], where Smith met with the philosopher [[Voltaire]].<ref>{{harvnb|Buchholz|1999|pp=16–17}}</ref>

[[File:Allan Ramsay - David Hume, 1711 - 1776. Historian and philosopher - Google Art Project.jpg|thumb|upright|[[David Hume]] was a friend and contemporary of Smith's.|alt=Philosopher David Hume, painting]]
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.<ref name="Buchholz 17">{{harvnb|Buchholz|1999|p=17}}</ref> Physiocrats were opposed to [[mercantilism]], the dominating economic theory of the time, illustrated in their motto ''[[Laissez-faire|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 of France|Louis&nbsp;XIV]]{{efn|During the reign of [[Louis XIV of France|Louis&nbsp;XIV]], the population shrunk by 4 million and agricultural productivity was reduced by one-third while the taxes had increased. Cusminsky, Rosa, de Cendrero, 1967, ''Los Fisiócratas'', Buenos Aires: Centro Editor de América Latina, p. 6}} and [[Louis XV of France|Louis&nbsp;XV]] in ruinous wars,{{efn|1701–1714 War of the Spanish Succession, 1688–1697 War of the Grand Alliance, 1672–1678 Franco-Dutch War, 1667–1668 War of Devolution, 1618–1648 Thirty Years' War}} and was further exhausted in aiding the [[American Revolutionary War|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."<ref>Smith, A., 1976, ''The Wealth of Nations'' edited by R.&nbsp;H. Campbell and A.&nbsp;S. Skinner, The Glasgow edition of the Works and Correspondence of Adam Smith, vol. 2b, p. 678.</ref> 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.