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

impoverishment, but the

total ruin of the country would have been expected from them ? The fire and

the plague of London, the two Dutch wars, the disorders of the revolution,

the war in Ireland, the four expensive French wars of 1688, 1701, 1742, and

1756, together with the two rebellions of 1715 and 1745. In the course of

the four French wars, the nation has contracted more than �145,000,000 of

debt, over and above all the other extraordinary annual expense which they

occasioned ; so that the whole cannot be computed at less than �200,000,000.

So great a share of the annual produce of the land and labour of the

country, has, since the Revolution, been employed upon different occasions,

in maintaining an extraordinary number of unproductive hands. But had not

those wars given this particular direction to so large a capital, the

greater part of it would naturally have been employed in maintaining

productive hands, whose labour would have replaced, with a profit, the whole

value of their consumption. The value of the annual produce of the land and

labour of the country would have been considerably increased by it every

year, and every years increase would have augmented still more that of the

following year. More houses would have been built, more lands would have

been improved, and those which had been improved before would have been

better cultivated; more manufactures would have been established, and those

which had been established before would have been more extended ; and to

what height the real wealth and revenue of the country might by this time

have been raised, it is not perhaps very easy even to imagine.

 

But though the profusion of government must undoubtedly have retarded the

natural progress of England towards wealth and improvement, it has not been

able to stop it. The annual produce of its land and labour is undoubtedly

much greater at present than it was either at the Restoration or at the

Revolution. The capital, therefore, annually employed in cultivating this

land, and in maintaining this labour, must likewise be much greater. In the

midst of all the exactions of government, this capital has been silently and

gradually accumulated by the private frugality and good conduct of

individuals, by their universal, continual, and uninterrupted effort to

better their own condition. It is this effort, protected by law, and allowed

by liberty to exert itself in the manner that is most advantageous, which

has maintained the progress of England towards opulence and improvement in

almost all former times, and which, it is to be hoped, will do so in all

future times. England, however, as it has never been blessed with a very

parsimonious government, so parsimony has at no time been the characteristic

virtue of its inhabitants. It is the highest impertinence and presumption,

therefore, in kings and ministers to pretend to watch over the economy of

private people, and to restrain their expense, either by sumptuary laws, or

by prohibiting the importation of foreign luxuries. They are themselves

always, and without any exception, the greatest spendthrifts in the society.

Let them look well after their own expense, and they may safely trust

private people with theirs. If their own extravagance does not ruin the

state. that of the subject never will.

 

As frugality increases, and prodigality diminishes, the public capital, so

the conduct of those whose expense just equals their revenue, without either

accumulating or encroaching, neither increases nor diminishes it. Some modes

of expense, however, seem to contribute more to the growth of public

opulence than others.

 

The revenue of an individual may be spent, either in things which are

consumed immediately, and in which one day’s expense can neither alleviate

nor support that of another ; or it may be spent in things mere durable,

which can therefore be accumulated, and in which every day’s expense may, as

he chooses, either alleviate, or support and heighten, the effect of that of

the following day. A man of fortune, for example, may either spend his

revenue in a profuse and sumptuous table, and in maintaining a great number

of menial servants, and a multitude of dogs and horses; or, contenting

himself with a frugal table, and few attendants, he may lay out the greater

part of it in adorning his house or his country villa, in useful or

ornamental buildings, in useful or ornamental furniture, in collecting

books, statues, pictures ; or in things more frivolous, jewels, baubles,

ingenious trinkets of different kinds; or, what is most trifling of all, in

amassing a great wardrobe of fine clothes, like the favourite and minister

of a great prince who died a few years ago. Were two men of equal fortune to

spend their revenue, the one chiefly in the one way, the other in the other,

the magnificence of the person whose expense had been chiefly in durable

commodities, would be continually increasing, every day’s expense

contributing something to support and heighten the effect of that of the

following day ; that of the other, on the contrary, would be no greater at

the end of the period than at the beginning. The former too would, at the

end of the period, be the richer man of the two. He would have a stock of

goods of some kind or other, which, though it might not be worth all that it

cost, would always be worth something. No trace or vestige of the expense of

the latter would remain, and the effects of ten or twenty years’ profusion

would be as completely annihilated as if they had never existed.

 

As the one mode of expense is more favourable than the other to the opulence

of an individual, so is it likewise to that of a nation. The houses, the

furniture, the clothing of the rich, in a little time, become useful to the

inferior and middling ranks of people. They are able to purchase them when

their superiors grow weary of them ; and the general accommodation of the

whole people is thus gradually improved, when this mode of expense becomes

universal among men of fortune. In countries which have long been rich, you

will frequently find the inferior ranks of people in possession both of

houses and furniture perfectly good and entire, but of which neither the one

could have been built, nor the other have been made for their use. What was

formerly a seat of the family of Seymour, is now an inn upon the Bath road.

The marriage-bed of James I. of Great Britain, which his queen brought with

her from Denmark, as a present fit for a sovereign to make to a sovereign,

was, a few years ago, the ornament of an alehouse at Dunfermline. In some

ancient cities, which either have been long stationary, or have gone

somewhat to decay, you will sometimes scarce find a single house which could

have been built for its present inhabitants. If you go into those houses,

too, you will frequently find many excellent, though antiquated pieces of

furniture, which are still very fit for use, and which could as little have

been made for them. Noble palaces, magnificent villas, great collections of

books, statues, pictures, and other curiosities, are frequently both an

ornament and an honour, not only to the neighbourhood, but to the whole

country to which they belong. Versailles is an ornament and an honour to

France, Stowe and Wilton to England. Italy still continues to command some

sort of veneration, by the number of monuments of this kind which it

possesses, though the wealth which produced them has decayed, and though the

genius which planned them seems to be extinguished, perhaps from not having

the same employment.

 

The expense, too, which is laid out in durable commodities, is favourable

not only to accumulation, but to frugality. If a person should at any time

exceed in it, he can easily reform without exposing himself to the censure

of the public. To reduce very much the number of his servants, to reform his

table from great profusion to great frugality, to lay down his equipage

after he has once set it up, are changes which cannot escape the observation

of his neighbours, and which are supposed to imply some acknowledgment of

preceding bad conduct. Few, therefore, of those who have once been so

unfortunate as to launch out too far into this sort of expense, have

afterwards the courage to reform, till ruin and bankruptcy oblige them. But

if a person has, at any time, been at too great an expense in building, in

furniture, in books, or pictures, no imprudence can be inferred from his

changing his conduct. These are things in which further expense is

frequently rendered unnecessary by former expense; and when a person stops

short, he appears to do so, not because he has exceeded his fortune, but

because he has satisfied his fancy.

 

The expense, besides, that is laid out in durable commodities, gives

maintenance, commonly, to a greater number of people than that which is

employed in the most profuse hospitality. Of two or three hundred weight of

provisions, which may sometimes be served up at a great festival, one half,

perhaps, is thrown to the dunghill, and there is always a great deal wasted

and abused. But if the expense of this entertainment had been employed in

setting to work masons, carpenters, upholsterers, mechanics, etc. a quantity

of provisions of equal value would have been distributed among a still

greater number of people, who would have bought them in pennyworths and

pound weights, and not have lost or thrown away a single ounce of them. In

the one way, besides, this expense maintains productive, in the other

unproductive hands. In the one way, therefore, it increases, in the other it

does not increase the exchangeable value of the annual produce of the land

and labour of the country.

 

I would not, however, by all this, be understood to mean, that the one

species of expense always betokens a more liberal or generous spirit than

the other. When a man of fortune spends his revenue chiefly in hospitality,

he shares the greater part of it with his friends and companions; but when

he employs it in purchasing such durable commodities, he often spends the

whole upon his own person, and gives nothing to any body without an

equivalent. The latter species of expense, therefore, especially when

directed towards frivolous objects, the little ornaments of dress and

furniture, jewels, trinkets, gew-gaws, frequently indicates, not only a

trifling, but a base and selfish disposition. All that I mean is, that the

one sort of expense, as it always occasions some accumulation of valuable

commodities, as it is more favourable to private frugality, and,

consequently, to the increase of the public capital, and as it maintains

productive rather than unproductive hands, conduces more than the other to

the growth of public opulence.

 

CHAPTER IV.

 

OF STOCK LENT AT INTEREST.

 

The stock which is lent at interest is always considered as a capital by the

lender. He expects that in due time it is to be restored to him, and that,

in the mean time, the borrower is to pay him a certain annual rent for the

use of it. The borrower may use it either as a capital, or as a stock

reserved for immediate consumption. If he uses it as a capital, he employs

it in the maintenance of productive labourers, who reproduce the value, with

a profit. He can, in this case, both restore the capital, and pay the

interest, without alienating or encroaching upon any other source of

revenue. If he uses it as a stock reserved for immediate consumption, he

acts the part of a prodigal, and dissipates, in the maintenance of the idle,

what was destined for the support of the industrious. He can, in this case,

neither