An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

The Project Gutenberg EBook of An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of 

the Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith

This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with 

almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or 

re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included 

with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

Title: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

Author: Adam Smith

Posting Date: February 28, 2009 [EBook #3300] 

Release Date: April, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS ***

Produced by Colin Muir

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,