An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader macos .TXT) 📕

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This etext was produced by Colin Muir <[email protected]>

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF

THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

by Adam Smith

INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it

with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually

consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that

labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.

According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a

greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it,

the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and

conveniencies for which it has occasion.

But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different

circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its

labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the

number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are

not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of

any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply

must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.

The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon

the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage

nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to work is more

or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide, as well as he

can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself, and such of his

family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm, to go

a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor, that,

from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at least think themselves

reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of

abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with

lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.

Among civilized and thriving nations, on the. contrary, though a great

number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce of

ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part

of those who work ; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so

great, that all are often abundantly supplied ; and a workman, even of the

lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a

greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is

possible for any savage to acquire.

The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the

order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the

different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of

the first book of this Inquiry.

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with

which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its

annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the

proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful

labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The number of useful and

productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in proportion

to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work,

and to the particular way in which it is so employed. The second book,

therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the manner in which it

is gradually accumulated, and of the different quantities of labour which it

puts into motion, according to the different ways in which it is employed.

Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the

application of labour, have followed very different plans in the general

conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been equally

favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some nations has

given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the country ; that of

others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and

impartially with every sort of industry. Since the down-fall of the Roman

empire, the policy of Europe has been more favourable to arts, manufactures,

and commerce, the industry of towns, than to agriculture, the Industry of

the country. The circumstances which seem to have introduced and

established this policy are explained in the third book.

Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private

interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any regard to,

or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of the society;

yet they have given occasion to very different theories of political

economy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry which is

carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the country.

Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions

of men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes and sovereign

states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain as fully and

distinctly as I can those different theories, and the principal effects

which they have produced in different ages and nations.

To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the

people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different ages

and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of these

four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue of the

sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to shew, first,

what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth ; which of

those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole

society, and which of them, by that of some particular part only, or of some

particular members of it: secondly, what are the different methods in which

the whole society may be made to contribute towards defraying the expenses

incumbent on the whole society, and what are the principal advantages and

inconveniencies of each of those methods ; and, thirdly and lastly, what are

the reasons and causes which have induced almost all modern governments to

mortgage some part of this revenue, or to contract debts; and what have been

the effects of those debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the

land and labour of the society.

BOOK I.

OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRlBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER I.

OF THE DIVISlON OF LABOUR.

The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the

greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is

anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division

of labour. The effects of the division of labour, in the general business of

society, will be more easily understood, by considering in what manner it

operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be

carried furthest in some very trifling ones ; not perhaps that it really is

carried further in them than in others of more importance: but in those

trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants of but a

small number of people, the whole number of workmen must necessarily be

small ; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often

be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of

the spectator.

In those great manufactures, on the contrary. which are destined to supply

the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch

of the work employs so great a number of workmen, that it is impossible to

collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one

time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such

manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater

number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is

not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed.

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one in

which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the

trade of a pin-maker: a workman not educated to this business (which the

division of labour has rendered a distinct trade, nor acquainted with the

use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same

division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with

his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make

twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only

the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of

branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man

draws out the wire; another straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth points

it; a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head

requires two or three distinct operations ; to put it on is a peculiar

business; to whiten the pins