An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith (ebook reader with highlighter txt) 📖

at different times, been

divided, have always derived the whole, or by far the most

considerable part, of their revenue, from some sort of land tax

or land rent. This land tax, or land rent, like the tithe in

Europe, consisted in a certain proportion, a fifth, it is said,

of the produce of the land, which was either delivered in kind,

or paid in money, according to a certain valuation, and which,

therefore, varied from year to year, according to all the

variations of the produce. It was natural, therefore, that the

sovereigns of those countries should be particularly attentive to

the interests of agriculture, upon the prosperity or declension

of which immediately depended the yearly increase or diminution

of their own revenue.

 

The policy of the ancient republics of Greece, and that of Rome,

though it honoured agriculture more than manufactures or foreign

trade, yet seems rather to have discouraged the latter

employments, than to have given any direct or intentional

encouragement to the former. In several of the ancient states of

Greece, foreign trade was prohibited altogether; and in several

others, the employments of artificers and manufacturers were

considered as hurtful to the strength and agility of the human

body, as rendering it incapable of those habits which their

military and gymnastic exercises endeavoured to form in it, and

as thereby disqualifying it, more or less, for undergoing the

fatigues and encountering the dangers of war. Such occupations

were considered as fit only for slaves, and the free citizens of

the states were prohibited from exercising them. Even in those

states where no such prohibition took place, as in Rome and

Athens, the great body of the people were in effect excluded from

all the trades which are now commonly exercised by the lower sort

of the inhabitants of towns. Such trades were, at Athens and

Rome, all occupied by the slaves of the rich, who exercised them

for the benefit of their masters, whose wealth, power, and

protection, made it almost impossible for a poor freeman to find

a market for his work, when it came into competition with that of

the slaves of the rich. Slaves, however, are very seldom

inventive ; and all the most important improvements, either in

machinery, or in the arrangement and distribution of work, which

facilitate and abridge labour have been the discoveries of

freemen. Should a slave propose any improvement of this kind, his

master would be very apt to consider the proposal as the

suggestion of laziness, and of a desire to save his own labour at

the master’s expense. The poor slave, instead of reward would

probably meet with much abuse, perhaps with some punishment. In

the manufactures carried on by slaves, therefore, more labour

must generally have been employed to execute the same quantity of

work, than in those carried on by freemen. The work of the farmer

must, upon that account, generally have been dearer than that of

the latter. The Hungarian mines, it is remarked by Mr.

Montesquieu, though not richer, have always been wrought with

less expense, and therefore with more profit, than the Turkish

mines in their neighbourhood. The Turkish mines are wrought by

slaves; and the arms of those slaves are the only machines which

the Turks have ever thought of employing. The Hungarian mines are

wrought by freemen, who employ a great deal of machinery, by

which they facilitate and abridge their own labour. From the very

little that is known about the price of manufactures in the times

of the Greeks and Romans, it would appear that those of the finer

sort were excessively dear. Silk sold for its weight in gold. It

was not, indeed, in those times an European manufacture ; and as

it was all brought from the East Indies, the distance of the

carriage may in some measure account for the greatness of the

price. The price, however, which a lady, it is said, would

sometimes pay for a piece of very fine linen, seems to have been

equally extravagant ; and as linen was always either an European,

or at farthest, an Egyptian manufacture, this high price can be

accounted for only by the great expense of the labour which must

have been employed about It, and the expense of this labour again

could arise from nothing but the awkwardness of the machinery

which is made use of. The price of fine woollens, too, though not

quite so extravagant, seems, however, to have been much above

that of the present times. Some cloths, we are told by Pliny

{Plin. 1. ix.c.39.}, dyed in a particular manner, cost a hundred

denarii, or �3:6s:8d. the pound weight. Others, dyed in another

manner, cost a thousand denarii the pound weight, or �33:6s:8d.

The Roman pound. it must be remembered, contained only twelve of

our avoirdupois ounces. This high price, indeed, seems to have

been principally owing to the dye. But had not the cloths

themselves been much dearer than any which are made in the

present times, so very expensive a dye would not probably have

been bestowed upon them. The disproportion would have been too

great between the value of the accessory and that of the

principal. The price mentioned by the same author {Plin. 1.

viii.c.48.}, of some triclinaria, a sort of woollen pillows or

cushions made use of to lean upon as they reclined upon their

couches at table, passes all credibility; some of them being said

to have cost more than �30,000, others more than �300,000. This

high price, too, is not said to have arisen from the dye. In the

dress of the people of fashion of both sexes, there seems to have

been much less variety, it is observed by Dr. Arbuthnot, in

ancient than in modern times; and the very little variety which

we find in that of the ancient statues, confirms his observation.

He infers from this, that their dress must, upon the whole, have

been cheaper than ours; but the conclusion does not seem to

follow. When the expense of fashionable dress is very great, the

variety must be very small. But when, by the improvements in the

productive powers of manufacturing art and industry, the expense

of any one dress comes to be very moderate, the variety will

naturally be very great. The rich, not being able to distinguish

themselves by the expense of any one dress, will naturally

endeavour to do so by the multitude and variety of their dresses.

 

The greatest and most important branch of the commerce of every

nation, it has already been observed, is that which is carried on

between the inhabitants of the town and those of the country. The

inhabitants of the town draw from the country the rude produce,

which constitutes both the materials of their work and the fund

of their subsistence ; and they pay for this rude produce, by

sending back to the country a certain portion of it manufactured

and prepared for immediate use. The trade which is carried on

between these two different sets of people, consists ultimately

in a certain quantity of rude produce exchanged for a certain

quantity of manufactured produce. The dearer the latter,

therefore, the cheaper the former; and whatever tends in any

country to raise the price of manufactured produce, tends to

lower that of the rude produce of the land, and thereby to

discourage agriculture. The smaller the quantity of

manufactured produce, which any given quantity of rude produce,

or, what comes to the same thing, which the price of any given

quantity of rude produce, is capable of purchasing, the smaller

the exchangeable value of that given quantity of rude produce;

the smaller the encouragement which either the landlord has to

increase its quantity by improving, or the farmer by cultivating

the land. Whatever, besides, tends to diminish in any country the

number of artificers and manufacturers, tends to diminish the

home market, the most important of all markets, for the rude

produce of the land, and thereby still further to discourage

agriculture.

 

Those systems, therefore, which preferring agriculture to all

other employments, in order to promote it, impose restraints upon

manufactures and foreign trade, act contrary to the very end

which they propose, and indirectly discourage that very species

of industry which they mean to promote. They are so far, perhaps,

more inconsistent than even the mercantile system. That system,

by encouraging manufactures and foreign trade more than

agriculture, turns a certain portion of the capital of the

society, from supporting a more advantageous, to support a less

advantageous species of industry. But still it really, and in the

end, encourages that species of industry which it means to

promote. Those agricultural systems, on the contrary, really, and

in the end, discourage their own favourite species of industry.

 

It is thus that every system which endeavours, either, by

extraordinary encouragements to draw towards a particular species

of industry a greater share of the capital of the society than

what would naturally go to it, or, by extraordinary restraints,

to force from a particular species of industry some share of the

capital which would otherwise be employed in it, is, in reality,

subversive of the great purpose which it means to promote. It

retards, instead of accelerating the progress of the society

towards real wealth and greatness ; and diminishes, instead of

increasing, the real value of the annual produce of its land and

labour.

 

All systems, either of preference or of restraint, therefore,

being thus completely taken away, the obvious and simple system

of natural liberty establishes itself of its own accord. Every

man, as long as he does not violate the laws of justice, is left

perfectly free to pursue his own interest his own way, and to

bring both his industry and capital into competition with those

of any other man, or order of men. The sovereign is completely

discharged from a duty, in the attempting to perform which he

must always be exposed to innumerable delusions, and for the

proper performance of which, no human wisdom or knowledge could

ever be sufficient ; the duty of superintending the industry of

private people, and of directing it towards the employments most

suitable to the interests of the society. According to the system

of natural liberty, the sovereign has only three duties to attend

to; three duties of great importance, indeed, but plain and

intelligible to common understandings: first, the duty of

protecting the society from the violence and invasion of other

independent societies ; secondly, the duty of protecting, as far

as possible, every member of the society from the injustice or

oppression of every other member of it, or the duty of

establishing an exact administration of justice ; and, thirdly,

the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works, and

certain public institutions, which it can never be for the

interest of any individual, or small number of individuals to

erect and maintain ; because the profit could never repay the

expense to any individual, or small number of individuals, though

it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.

 

The proper performance of those several duties of the sovereign

necessarily supposes a certain expense ; and this expense again

necessarily requires a certain revenue to support it. In the

following book, therefore, I shall endeavour to explain, first,

what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign or commonwealth;

and 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 ouly, or of some particular members of the

society: 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, what are the reasons