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

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 DISTRIBUTED 

AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.

CHAPTER I. OF THE DIVISION 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