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.
