# WN prints a public case against exclusive companies as harmful to consumers

Date: 1776

## The fact

Gutenberg WN against exclusive companies is a transparency-and-anti-monopoly path. Twin of describing company power. The dated public instrument is stored under 1776-03-19. [Adam Smith](/people/adam-smith) did not operate this later page as a civil-registry autograph.

It is one event.

## Context

Shared institutions, unnamed crews, and later editors remain in the record and do not erase a documented heading.

Adam Smith Shared work with other named actors remains in the record.

Adam Smith’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional years are 1723–1790. Dated instruments are later Glasgow/Liberty Fund editions, Gutenberg TMS and WN, Glasgow and NLS pages.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — public English and Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy — Adam Smith’s Political Economy independently describe this instrument.

Official or archival record: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations — public English (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300; Project Gutenberg).

## Significance

Gutenberg WN against exclusive companies is a transparency-and-anti-monopoly path. Twin of describing company power.

## What is established and what is not

Established as a dated public record of this instrument.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Adam Smith.

They are not a public rating.

Driver `institutional-corruption` is attached because the Significance sentence names a mechanism from WN prints a public case against exclusive companies as harmful to consumers at 1776-03-16, not because a standing driver list needed coverage. Official page: https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300. Independent page: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/smith-political-economy/.

## People

- Adam Smith: https://factrail.ai/people/adam-smith

## Drivers

- Institutional Corruption: https://factrail.ai/drivers/institutional-corruption

## Sources

- https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/smith-political-economy/
- https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/asm-critique-monopoly