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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Voyage historique, tom. i, p. 443, 445: βsixteen to eighteen thousand persons of Spanish extraction, a comparatively small number of Indians and half-breeds, the greater part of the population being negroes and mulattoes.β β©
E.g., Santiago and Callao, Frezier, Voyage, pp. 102, 202; Juan and Ulloa, Voyage historique, vol. i, p. 468; vol. ii, p. 49. β©
Originally one ship, and, after 1720, two ships, were allowed to sail between Acapulco in Mexico and the Philippines. For the regulations applied to the trade see Uztariz, Theory and Practice of Commerce and Maritime Affairs, trans. by John Kippax, 1751, vol. i, pp. 206β ββ 208. β©
βIn order to prevent the great consumption of timber fit for the construction of large ships of war, the East India Company were prohibited from building, or allowing to be built for their service, any new ships, till the shipping in their employment should be reduced under 45,000 tons, or employing any ships built after 18th March, 1772. But they are at liberty to build any vessel whatever in India or the colonies, or to charter any vessel built in India or the colonies, 12 Geo. III, c. 54.β ββ Macpherson, Annals of Commerce, 1805, AD 1772, vol. iii, pp. 521, 522 β©
Ed. 1 places βin Indiaβ here instead of in the line above. β©
Above, here. β©
Ed. 1 does not contain βor at most as twelveβ here and two lines lower down. β©
Newton, in his Representation to the Lords of the Treasury, 1717 (reprinted in the Universal Merchant, quoted on the next page), says that in China and Japan the ratio is 9 or 10 to 1 and in India 12 to 1, and this carries away the silver from all Europe. Magens, in a note to this passage (Universal Merchant, p. 90), says that down to 1732 such quantities of silver went to China to fetch back gold that the price of gold in China rose and it became no longer profitable to send silver there. β©
Ed. 1 reads βbe the principal commodity.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βchiefly.β β©
The same words are used below, here. β©
Postscript to the Universal Merchant, p. 15 and 16. This postscript was not printed till 1756, three years after the publication of the book, which has never had a second edition. The postscript is, therefore, to be found in few copies. It corrects several errors in the book. ββ Smith
This note appears first in ed. 2. The title of the work referred to is Farther Explanations of Some Particular Subjects Relating to Trade, Coin, and Exchanges, Contained in the Universal Merchant, by N. M., 1756. On p. 1 N. M. claims the authorship of the book βpublished by Mr. Horsley under the too pompous title of The Universal Merchant.β In the dedication of The Universal Merchant, 1753, William Horsley, the editor, says the author βthough an alien by birth is an Englishman by interest.β Sir James Steuart, who calls him βMr. Megens,β says he lived long in England and wrote the Universal Merchant in German, from which it had been translated (Inquiry Into the Principles of Political Economy, 1767, vol. ii, pp. 158, 292). The Gentlemanβs Magazine for August, 1764, p. 398, contains in the obituary, under date August 18, 1764, βNicholas Magens Esq. a merchant worth Β£100,000.β ββ Cannan β©
The two periods are really five years, April, 1748, to April, 1753, and six years, January, 1747, to January, 1753, but the averages are correct, being taken from Magens. β©
The 10s. here should be 14s., and two lines lower down the 14s. should be 10s. β©
Misprinted 13,984ΒΉβΈβ΅Β³ββ in ed. 2 and later editions. β©
Raynal, Histoire philosophique et politique des Γ©tablissemens et du commerce des EuropΓ©ens dans les deux Indes, Amsterdam ed., 1773, tom. iii, p. 310. β©
Raynal, Histoire philosophique, Amsterdam ed., 1773, tom. iii, p. 385. β©
Ed. 1 does not contain βthough manuscript.β β©
Above, here. β©
Ed. 1 does not contain βor one to twelve.β β©
Cantillon gives one to ten for China and one to eight for Japan, Essai, p. 365. β©
Above, here through here. The exact figure given by Magens, Farther Explanations, p. 16, is 1 to Β²Β²ΒΉβββ. β©
Farther Explanations, p. 17. β©
See Ruddimanβs Preface to Andersonβs Diplomata, etc. ScotiΓ¦. ββ Smith
Selectus diplomatum et numismatum thesaurus (quoted above, here), pp. 84, 85; and in the translation, pp. 175, 176. But the statement that gold preponderated is founded merely on the fact that the value of the gold coined in the periods 16th December, 1602, to 19th July, 1606, and 20th September, 1611, to 14th April, 1613, was greater than that of the silver coined in the same time, which proves nothing about the proportions in the whole stock of coin. The statement is repeated below, here. The note appears first in ed. 2. ββ Cannan β©
Ed. 1 reads βEuropean.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βEuropean.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βone fifth part of it, or to twenty percent.β β©
Above, here and here. β©
Above, here. β©
Ed.
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