The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith (best novels to read for beginners txt) 📖

usually happened that the most precious metal in use as money has been made or become the standard. Gold was already the standard in England, though the fact was not generally recognised; see Harris, Money and Coins, pt. ii, §§ 36, 37, and below, here through here. ↩

In 1774. ↩

These regulations, issued in 1774, provided that guineas should not pass when they had lost a certain portion of their weight, varying with their age. —⁠Liverpool, Coins of the Realm, p. 216, note ↩

Magens, Universal Merchant, ed. Horsley, 1753, pp. 53⁠–⁠55, gives the proportions thus: French coin, 1 to 14⁵⁸⁰³⁄₁₂₂₇₉, Dutch, 1 to 14⁸²⁵⁵⁰⁄₁₅₄₄₂₅, English, 1 to 15¹⁴²⁹⁵⁄₆₈₂₀₀. ↩

Full weight silver coins would not remain in circulation, as the bullion in them was worth more reckoned in guineas and in the ordinary old and worn silver coins than the nominal amount stamped on them. ↩

Locke, Further Considerations Concerning Raising the Value of Money, 2nd ed., 1695, pp. 58⁠–⁠60. The exportation of foreign coin (misprinted “kind” in Pickering) or bullion of gold or silver was permitted by 15 Car. II, c. 7, on the ground that it was “found by experience that” money and bullion were “carried in greatest abundance (as to a common market) to such places as give free liberty for exporting the same” and in order “the better to keep in and increase the current coins” of the kingdom. ↩

Harris, writing nearly twenty years earlier, had said, “it would be a ridiculous and vain attempt to make a standard integer of gold, whose parts should be silver; or to make a motley standard, part gold and part silver.” —⁠Money and Coins, pt. 1., § 36 ↩

I.e., an ounce of standard gold would not actually fetch £3 175s. 10½d. if sold for cash down. ↩

This erroneous statement is repeated below, here, and also here, where the calculations on which it is based are given. See the note on that passage. ↩

The question of seignorage is further discussed at some length in the chapter on Commercial Treaties, vol. ii, pp. 51⁠–⁠57. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “in the tear and wear of coin, and in the tear and wear of plate.” ↩

Ed. 1 does not contain “the whole produce of labour belongs to the labourer; and.” The words, however, occur in all Eds. here. ↩

“The capital annually employed” is the working expenses for twelve months, not the capital in the usual modern sense. ↩

Ed. 1 inserts “frequently.” ↩

Eds. 1 and 2 read “proportion to it.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads “profits of stock are a source of value.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads from the beginning of the paragraph: “In this state of things, therefore, the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity is by no means the only circumstance.” ↩

Buchanan, ed. Wealth of Nations, 1814, vol. i, p. 80, says: “They do so. But the question is why this apparently unreasonable demand is so generally complied with. Other men love also to reap where they never sowed, but the landlords alone, it would appear, succeed in so desirable an object.” ↩

Ed. 1 does not contain “the labourer” and “even to him.” ↩

Ed. 1 in place of these two sentences reads: “Men must then pay for the licence to gather them; and in exchanging them either for money, for labour, or for other goods, over and above what is due, both for the labour of gathering them, and for the profits of the stock which employs that labour, some allowance must be made for the price of the licence, which constitutes the first rent of land. In the price therefore of the greater part of commodities the rent of land comes in this manner to constitute a third source of value. In this state of things, neither the quantity of labour commonly employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, nor the profits of the stock which advanced the wages and furnished the materials of that labour, are the only circumstances which can regulate the quantity of labour which it ought commonly to purchase, command or exchange for. A third circumstance must likewise be taken into consideration; the rent of the land; and the commodity must commonly purchase, command or exchange for, an additional quantity of labour, in order to enable the person who brings it to market to pay this rent.” ↩

Ed. 1 reads “The real value of all the different component parts of price is in this manner measured.” ↩

Smith overlooks the fact that his inclusion of the maintenance of labouring cattle here as a sort of wages requires him to include it in the national income or “wealth of the nation,” and therefore to reckon the cattle themselves as part of the nation. ↩

Ed. 1 reads “tear and wear.” ↩

The use of “labour” instead of the more natural “wages” here is more probably the result of its use five lines higher up than of any feeling of difficulty about the maintenance of cattle. Here “rent, labour and profit” and “rent, wages and profit” are both used; see here, and note. ↩

The fact that the later manufacturer has to replace what is here called the capital, i.e., the periodical expenditure of the earlier manufacturer, does not necessarily require him to have a greater capital to deal with the same produce. It need not be greater if he