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

that, by tying a string from the handle of the valve

which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve

would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to

divert himself with his play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that

has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this

manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.

 

All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the

inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements

have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make

them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who

are called philosophers, or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do

any thing, but to observe every thing, and who, upon that account, are often

capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar

objects. in the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like

every other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a

particular class of citizens. Like every other employment, too, it is

subdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords

occupation to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers ; and this

subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business,

improve dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in

his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity

of science is considerably increased by it.

 

It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts,

in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a

well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the

lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own

work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other

workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a

great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity or, what comes to the

same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them

abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as

amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself

through all the different ranks of the society.

 

Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in a

civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of

people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed

in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen

coat, for example, which covers the daylabourer, as coarse and rough as it

may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of

workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder,

the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser,

with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete

even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must

have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen

to others who often live in a very distant part of the country ? How much

commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors,

sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together

the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the

remotest corners of the world ? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary

in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen ! To say

nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of

the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a

variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine,

the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of

the furnace for smelting the ore the feller of the timber, the burner of

the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the

bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger,

the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce

them. Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his

dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next

his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all

the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares

his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the

bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long

land-carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of

his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he

serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in

preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat

and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge

and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without

which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very

comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen

employed in producing those different conveniencies ; if we examine, I say,

all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about

each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and

co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized

country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely

imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.

Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his

accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy ; and yet it

may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not

always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the

accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the

absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.

 

CHAPTER II.

 

OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO

THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.

 

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not

originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that

general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though

very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature,

which has in view no such extensive utility ; the propensity to truck,

barter, and exchange one thing for another.

 

Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature,

of which no further account can be given, or whether, as seems more

probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and

speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to

all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know

neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running

down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of

concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept

her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the

effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions

in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a

fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.

Nobody ever saw one animal, by its gestures and natural cries signify to

another, this is mine, that yours ; I am willing to give this for that. When

an animal wants to obtain something either of a man, or of another animal,

it has no other means of persuasion, but to gain the favour of those whose

service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours,

by a thousand attractions, to engage the attention of its master who is at

dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts

with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act

according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning

attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this

upon every occasion. In civilized society he stands at all times in need of

the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is

scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every

other race of animals, each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is

entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the

assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant

occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect

it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can

interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their

own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to

another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I

want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such

offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far

greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from

the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our

dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves,

not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our

own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to

depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar

does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people,

indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though

this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life

which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as

he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are

supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter,

and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food.

The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other

clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money,

with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

 

As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from one

another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in need

of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion

to the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds, a particular

person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity

than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison, with

his companions; and he finds at last that he can, in this manner, get more

cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From

a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows

to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels

in making the frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses. He

is accustomed to be of use in this way to his neighbours,