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

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invention of gunpowder, seems to have given occasion.

 

In modern war, the great expense of firearms gives an evident

advantage to the nation which can best afford that expense; and,

consequently, to an opulent and civilized, over a poor and

barbarous nation. In ancient times, the opulent and civilized

found it difficult to defend themselves against the poor and

barbarous nations. In modern times, the poor and barbarous find

it difficult to defend themselves against the opulent and

civilized. The invention of firearms, an invention which at

first sight appears to be so pernicious, is certainly favourable,

both to the permanency and to the extension of civilization.

 

PART II.

 

Of the Expense of Justice

 

The second duty of the sovereign, that 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, requires two

very different degrees of expense in the different periods of

society.

 

Among nations of hunters, as there is scarce any property, or at

least none that exceeds the value of two or three days labour ;

so there is seldom any established magistrate, or any regular

administration of justice. Men who have no property, can injure

one another only in their persons or reputations. But when one

man kills, wounds, beats, or defames another, though he to whom

the injury is done suffers, he who does it receives no benefit.

It is otherwise with the injuries to property. The benefit of the

person who does the injury is often equal to the loss of him who

suffers it. Envy, malice, or resentment, are the only passions

which can prompt one man to injure another in his person or

reputation. But the greater part of men are not very frequently

under the influence of those passions; and the very worst men are

so only occasionally. As their gratification, too, how agreeable

soever it may be to certain characters, is not attended with any

real or permanent advantage, it is, in the greater part of men,

commonly restrained by prudential considerations. Men may live

together in society with some tolerable degree of security,

though there is no civil magistrate to protect them from the

injustice of those passions. But avarice and ambition in the

rich, in the poor the hatred of labour and the love of present

ease and enjoyment, are the passions which prompt to invade

property ; passions much more steady in their operation, and much

more universal in their influence. Wherever there is a great

property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there

must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few

supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich

excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by

want, and prompted by envy to invade his possessions. It is only

under the shelter of the civil magistrate, that the owner of that

valuable property, which is acquired by the labour of many years,

or perhaps of many successive generations, can sleep a single

night in security. He is at all times surrounded by unknown

enemies, whom, though he never provoked, he can never appease,

and from whose injustice he can be protected only by the powerful

arm of the civil magistrate, continually held up to chastise it.

The acquisition of valuable and extensive property, therefore,

necessarily requires the establishment of civil government. Where

there is no property, or at least none that exceeds the value of

two or three days labour, civil government is not so necessary.

 

Civil government supposes a certain subordination. But as the

necessity of civil government gradually grows up with the

acquisition of valuable property; so the principal causes, which

naturally introduce subordination, gradually grow up with the

growth of that valuable property.

 

The causes or circumstances which naturally introduce

subordination, or which naturally and antecedent to any civil

institution, give some men some superiority over the greater part

of their brethren, seem to be four in number.

 

The first of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of

personal qualifications, of strength, beauty, and agility of body

; of wisdom and virtue; of prudence, justice, fortitude, and

moderation of mind. The qualifications of the body, unless

supported by those of the mind, can give little authority in any

period of society. He is a very strong man, who, by mere strength

of body, can force two weak ones to obey him. The qualifications

of the mind can alone give very great authority They are however,

invisible qualities; always disputable, and generally disputed.

No society, whether barbarous or civilized, has ever found it

convenient to settle the rules of precedency of rank and

subordination, according to those invisible qualities; but

according to something that is more plain and palpable.

 

The second of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority

of age. An old man, provided his age is not so far advanced as to

give suspicion of dotage, is everywhere more respected than a

young man of equal rank, fortune, and abilities. Among nations of

hunters, such as the native tribes of North America, age is the

sole foundation of rank and precedency. Among them, father is the

appellation of a superior ; brother, of an equal ; and son, of an

inferior. In the most opulent and civilized nations, age

regulates rank among those who are in every other respect equal ;

and among whom, therefore, there is nothing else to regulate it.

Among brothers and among sisters, the eldest always takes place ;

and in the succession of the paternal estate, every thing which

cannot be divided, but must go entire to one person, such as a

title of honour, is in most cases given to the eldest. Age is a

plain and palpable quality, which admits of no dispute.

 

The third of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority of

fortune. The authority of riches, however, though great in every

age of society, is, perhaps, greatest in the rudest ages of

society, which admits of any considerable inequality of fortune.

A Tartar chief, the increase of whose flocks and herds is

sufficient to maintain a thousand men, cannot well employ that

increase in any other way than in maintaining a thousand men. The

rude state of his society does not afford him any manufactured

produce any trinkets or baubles of any kind, for which he can

exchange that part of his rude produce which is over and above

his own consumption. The thousand men whom he thus maintains,

depending entirely upon him for their subsistence, must both obey

his orders in war, and submit to his jurisdiction in peace. He is

necessarily both their general and their judge, and his

chieftainship is the necessary effect of the superiority of his

fortune. In an opulent and civilized society, a man may possess a

much greater fortune, and yet not be able to command a dozen of

people. Though the produce of his estate may be sufficient to

maintain, and may, perhaps, actually maintain, more than a

thousand people, yet, as those people pay for every thing which

they get from him, as he gives scarce any thing to any body but

in exchange for an equivalent, there is scarce anybody who

considers himself as entirely dependent upon him, and his

authority extends only over a few menial servants. The authority

of fortune, however, is very great, even in an opulent and

civilized society. That it is much greater than that either of

age or of personal qualities, has been the constant complaint of

every period of society which admitted of any considerable

inequality of fortune. The first period of society, that of

hunters, admits of no such inequality. Universal poverty

establishes their universal equality ; and the superiority,

either of age or of personal qualities, are the feeble, but the

sole foundations of authority and subordination. There is,

therefore, little or no authority or subordination in this period

of society. The second period of society, that of shepherds,

admits of very great inequalities of fortune, and there is no

period in which the superiority of fortune gives so great

authority to those who possess it. There is no period,

accordingly, in which authority and subordination are more

perfectly established. The authority of an Arabian scherif is

very great; that of a Tartar khan altogether despotical.

 

The fourth of those causes or circumstances, is the superiority

of birth. Superiority of birth supposes an ancient superiority of

fortune in the family of the person who claims it. All families

are equally ancient ; and the ancestors of the prince, though

they may be better known, cannot well be more numerous than those

of the beggar. Antiquity of family means everywhere the antiquity

either of wealth, or of that greatness which is commonly either

founded upon wealth, or accompanied with it. Upstart greatness is

everywhere less respected than ancient greatness. The hatred of

usurpers, the love of the family of an ancient monarch, are in a

great measure founded upon the contempt which men naturally have

for the former, and upon their veneration for the latter. As a

military officer submits, without reluctance, to the authority of

a superior by whom he has always been commanded, but cannot bear

that his inferior should be set over his head; so men easily

submit to a family to whom they and their ancestors have always

submitted; but are fired with indignation when another family, in

whom they had never acknowledged any such superiority, assumes a

dominion over them.

 

The distinction of birth, being subsequent to the inequality of

fortune, can have no place in nations of hunters, among whom all

men, being equal in fortune, must likewise be very nearly equal

in birth. The son of a wise and brave man may, indeed, even among

them, be somewhat more respected than a man of equal merit, who

has the misfortune to be the son of a fool or a coward. The

difference, however will not be very great; and there never was,

I believe, a great family in the world, whose illustration was

entirely derived from the inheritance of wisdom and virtue.

 

The distinction of birth not only may, but always does, take

place among nations of shepherds. Such nations are always

strangers to every sort of luxury, and great wealth can scarce

ever be dissipated among them by improvident profusion. There are

no nations, accordingly, who abound more in families revered and

honoured on account of their descent from a long race of great

and illustrious ancestors ; because there are no nations among

whom wealth is likely to continue longer in the same families.

 

Birth and fortune are evidently the two circumstances which

principally set one man above another. They are the two great

sources of personal distinction, and are, therefore, the

principal causes which naturally establish authority and

subordination among men. Among nations of shepherds, both those

causes operate with their full force. The great shepherd or

herdsman, respected on account of his great wealth, and of the

great number of those who depend upon him for subsistence, and

revered on account of the nobleness of his birth, and of the

immemorial antiquity or his illustrious family, has a natural

authority over all the inferior shepherds or herdsmen of his

horde or clan. He can command the united force of a greater

number of people than any of them. His military power is greater

than that of any of them. In time of war, they are all of them

naturally disposed to muster themselves under his banner, rather

than under that of any other person ; and his birth and fortune

thus naturally procure to him some sort of executive power. By

commanding, too, the united force of a greater number