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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Chronicon Rusticum-Commerciale; or Memoirs of Wool, etc., 1767, vol. ii, p. 418, note. β©
Above, here. β©
Additions and Corrections reads βthe wool.β β©
12 Car. II, c. 32; 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18. β©
13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, Β§ 8. The preamble to the clause alleges that βgreat quantities of fullerβs earth or fulling clay are daily carried and exported under the colour of tobacco-pipe clay.β β©
The preamble says that βnotwithstanding the many good laws before this time made and still in force, prohibiting the exportation of leatherβ ββ β¦ by the cunning and subtlety of some persons and the neglect of others who ought to take care thereof; there are such quantities of leather daily exported to foreign parts that the price of leather is grown to those excessive rates that many artificers working leather cannot furnish themselves with sufficient store thereof for the carrying on of their trades, and the poor sort of people are not able to buy those things made of leather which of necessity they must make use of.β β©
20 Car. II, c. 5; 9 Ann., c. 6, Β§ 4. β©
9 Ann., c. 11, Β§ 39, explained by 10 Ann., c. 26, Β§ 6, and 12 Ann., st. 2, c. 9, Β§ 64. β©
Above, here. β©
Except under certain conditions by 4 Ed. IV, c. 8; wholly by 7 Jac. I, c. 14, Β§ 4. β©
Under 13 and 14 Car. II, c. 18, and 7 and 8 W. III, c. 28; above, p. 147. β©
See below, here. β©
9 and 10 W. III, c. 28, professedly to prevent frauds. β©
The preamble to the Act next quoted in the text mentions 28 Ed. III, c. 5 (iron); 33 Hen. VIII, c. 7 (brass, copper, etc.), and 2 and 3 Ed. VI, c. 37 (bell-metal, etc.). β©
This Act is not printed in the ordinary collections, but the provision referred to is in Pickeringβs index, s.v. Copper, and the clause is recited in a renewing Act, 12 Ann., st. 1, c. 18. β©
Under the general Act, 8 Geo. I, c. 15, mentioned immediately below. β©
12 Car. II, c. 4, Β§ 2, and 14 Car. II, c. 11, Β§ 35. The 1 percent was due on goods exported to ports in the Mediterranean beyond Malaga, unless the ship had sixteen guns and other warlike equipment. See Saxby, British Customs, pp. 48, 51. β©
Sixpence in the pound on the values at which they are rated in the Act. β©
C. 32. β©
Anderson, Commerce, AD 1758. β©
As is stated in the preamble. β©
The facts are given in the preamble to 8 Geo. I, c. 15, Β§ 13. The old subsidy, the new, the one-third and the two-thirds subsidies account for 1s., and the additional impost for 4d. β©
See above, here. β©
8 Geo. I, c. 15. ββ Smith
The year should be 1721. ββ Cannan β©
I.e. the hatters. β©
4 Geo. III, c. 9. β©
Under the same statute, 5 Geo. I, c. 27. β©
Above, here. β©
This chapter appears first in Additions and Corrections and ed. 3, and is doubtless largely due to Smithβs appointment in 1778 to the Commissionership of Customs (Rae, Life of Adam Smith, p. 320). He had in his library W. Sims and R. Frewin, The Rates of Merchandise, 1782 (see Bonar, Catalogue, p. 27), and probably had access to earlier works, such as Saxbyβs British Customs, 1757, which give the duties, etc., at earlier periods as well as references to the Acts of Parliament regulating them. β©
The Γconomistes or Physiocrats. Quesnay, Mirabeau and Mercier de la RiviΓ¨re are mentioned below, pp. 171, 177. β©
Ed. 1 places a full stop at βmercantile systemβ and continues βThat system, in its nature and essence a system of restraint and regulation, could scarce fail.β β©
But, see below, here, where the usefulness of the class is said to be admitted. In his exposition of physiocratic doctrine, Smith does not appear to follow any particular book closely. His library contained Du Pontβs Physiocratie, ou constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain, 1768 (see Bonar, Catalogue, p. 92), and he refers lower down to La RiviΓ¨re, Lβordre naturel et essentiel des sociΓ©tΓ©s politiques, 1767, but he probably relied largely on his recollection of conversations in Paris; see Rae, Life of Adam Smith, pp. 215β ββ 222. β©
Ed. 1 reads βtear and wear.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βsome other employment.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βdegrades.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βrepay him.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βabove the funds destined.β β©
Ed. 1 reads βthe greater must likewise be its maintenance and employment.β β©
Misprinted βgreaterβ in ed. 5. β©
Ed. 1 reads βof their foreign trade.β β©
See FranΓ§ois Quesnay, Tableau Εconomique, 1758, reproduced in facsimile for the British Economic Association, 1894. β©
Ed. 1 reads βat least to all appearance.β β©
This chapter. β©
See
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