The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (the best motivational books .TXT) π
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The Wealth of Nations is economist Adam Smithβs magnum opus and the foundational text of what today we call classical economics. Its publication ushered in a new era of thinking and discussion about how economies function, a sea change away from the older, increasingly-irrelevant mercantilist and physiocratic views of economics towards a new practical application of economics for the birth of the industrial era. Its scope is vast, touching on concepts like free markets, supply and demand, division of labor, war, and public debt. Its fundamental message is that the wealth of a nation is measured not by the gold in the monarchβs treasury, but by its national income, which in turn is produced by labor, land, and capital.
Some ten years in the writing, The Wealth of Nations is the product of almost two decades of notes, study, and discussion. It was released to glowing praise, selling out its first print run in just six months and going through five subsequent editions and countless reprintings in Smithβs lifetime. It began inspiring legislators almost immediately and continued to do so well into the 1800s, and influenced thinkers ranging from Alexander Hamilton to Karl Marx.
Today, it is the second-most-cited book in the social sciences that was published before 1950, and its legacy as a foundational text places it in the stratosphere of civilization-changing books like Principia Mathematica and The Origin of Species.
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- Author: Adam Smith
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Ed. 1 reads βdegraded.β β©
See above, here. β©
Lowndes, Essay, p. 88. β©
Lowndesβs Essay on the Silver Coin, p. 68. ββ Smith
This note appears first in ed. 2. ββ Cannan β©
Above, here. β©
The meaning is βgiven a certain area and intensity of cultivation, the bounty will raise the price of corn.β β©
Ed. 1 does not contain βupon the principles of a system which I shall explain hereafter.β The reference is presumably to here through here. β©
Ed. 1 reads here βa notion which I shall examine hereafter.β β©
Doubtless by a misprint ed. 5 omits βfirst.β The term is used again at the end of the paragraph and also here through here. β©
See the table at the end of the chapter; ΒΉβΉβββ is a mistake for βΉβββ. β©
The 25 percent is erroneously reckoned on the Β£2 0s. 6ΒΉβΉβββd. instead of on the Β£2 11s. old. The fall of price is really less than 21 percent. β©
The date is taken from the heading of Scheme D in Davenant, Essay Upon the Probable Means of Making a People Gainers in the Balance of Trade, 1699, p. 22, Works, ed. Whitworth, 1771, vol. ii, p. 184. Cp. Natural and Political Observations and Conclusions Upon the State and Condition of England, by Gregory King, Esq., Lancaster, H., in George Chalmersβ Estimate of the Comparative Strength of Great Britain, 1802, p. 429; in Davenant, Balance of Trade, pp. 71, 72, Works, vol. ii, p. 217. Davenant says βthis value is what the same is worth upon the spot where the corn grew; but this value is increased by the carriage to the place where it is at last spent, at least ΒΌ part more.β β©
Ed. 1 does not contain this parenthesis. β©
See this note. β©
Ed. 5, doubtless by a misprint, omits βeven.β β©
Below, here through here. β©
The references to DuprΓ© de St. Maur and the Essay (see above, p. 181, note), as well as the whole argument of the paragraph, are from Messance, Recherches sur la population des gΓ©nΓ©ralitΓ©s dβAuvergne, etc., p. 281. Messanceβs quotations are from DuprΓ©βs Essai sur les Monnoies, 1746, p. 68, and Herbertβs Essai sur la police gΓ©nΓ©rale des grains, 1755, pp. ix, 77, 189; cp. below, here. β©
Above, here through here. β©
Examined below, here. β©
See the table at the end of the chapter. β©
This figure is obtained, as recommended by Charles Smith (Tracts on the Corn Trade, 1766, p. 104), by deducting one-ninth for the greater size of the Windsor measure and one-ninth from the remainder for the difference between best and middling wheat. β©
βTract 3rd,β referred to a few lines farther on, only gives the quantities of each kind of grain exported in each year (here through here), so that if the figures in the text are taken from it they must have been obtained by somewhat laborious arithmetical operations. The particulars are as follows:β β
Exported Bounty payable Qr. Bush. Wheat 3,784,524 1 Β£946,131 0 7Β½ Rye 765,056 6 133,884 18 7Β½ Barley, malt and oats 3,479,575 2 434,946 18 1Β½ 8,029,156 1 Β£1,514,962 17 4Β½β©
βYearsβ is apparently a mistake for βmonths.β βThere is such a superabundance of corn that incredible quantities have been lately exported. I should be afraid to mention what quantities have been exported if it did not appear upon our customhouse books; but from them it appears that lately there was in three monthsβ time above Β£220,000 paid for bounties upon corn exported.β ββ Parliamentary History (Hansard), vol. xiv, p. 589 β©
See Tracts on the Corn Trade; Tract 3d. ββ Smith
This note appears first in ed. 2. The exports for 1750 are given in C. Smith, op. cit., p. 111, as 947,602 qr. 1 bush. of wheat, 99,049 qr. 3 bush. of rye, and 559,538 qr. 5 bush. of barley, malt and oats. The bounty on these quantities would be Β£324,176 10s. ββ Cannan β©
Above, here. β©
Ed. 1, perhaps correctly, reads βquantity.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βfifth.β β©
Above, here. β©
Ed. 1 reads βfell to a third and then to a fifth, at which rate it still continues.β β©
Solorzano, vol. ii. ββ Smith
Solorzano-Pereira, De Indiarum Jure, Madrid, 1777, lib. v, cap. i, §§ 22, 23; vol. ii, p. 883, col. 2. Ed. 1 does not contain the note. ββ Cannan β©
Ed. 1 reads βone and thirty years before 1535.β The date 1545 is given in Solorzano, De Indiarum Jure, Madrid, 1777, vol. ii, p. 882, col. 2. β©
Ed. 1 reads βIn the course of a century.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βA hundred years.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βlowerβ instead of βreduce,β and does not contain βnot only to one-tenth, as in 1736, but to one-twentieth.β See this note. β©
Below, here. Raynal, Histoire philosophique, Amsterdam ed. 1773, tom. iii, pp. 113, 116, takes the same view of the Peruvians. β©
Below, here through here passim. β©
Voyage to the South
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