Smith ([0000] 0000) integrated these views into a model
of normative economics. He transformed Aristotelian virtue
into the view of what was “productive,” which he defined in
terms of the contribution to national wealth. He held to the
mercantilist idea that natural wealth was created through production of tangible surplus for export but insisted that this
process was governed by the “invisible hand” of natural law
rather than the restrictive laws of man. To the land and agricultural labor foundations of productivity proposed by the
physiocrats, he added the labor of industry and capital, the
embodiment of past labor. Value was a property of tangible
things, derived from the rent of land, capital, and labor that
created tangible objects.