An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsT. Nelson and Sons, 1895 - 447 pages |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith advantage afford altogether ancient annual produce balance of trade bank bounty bour Britain bullion capital carried cattle cent circulating capital circulation coin colonies commerce commodities commonly consequence considerable consumed consumption corn coun cultivation dealers debt demand dities duce duties employed employment England equal established Europe exchange expense exportation farmer favour foreign trade France frequently fund gold and silver importation improvement increase industry inhabitants interest kind landlord less maintain manner manufactures ment merchants metals money price monopoly nations natural natural price necessarily necessary neral never obliged occasion ordinary paid particular perhaps pound weight pounds present proportion proprietors purchase raise rate of profit regulated render rent revenue rude produce Scotland seems seignorage seldom sell shillings society sometimes sort sovereign Spain subsistence sufficient supposed surplus tain thing tion tivated wages of labour wealth Wealth of Nations whole
Popular passages
Page 292 - 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
Page 292 - 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
Page 54 - conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. It is impossible, indeed, to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice. But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought todo nothing to facilitate such assemblies,
Page 28 - hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters rarely combine, is as ignorant of the world as of the subject. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform, combination, not to raise the wages of
Page 191 - person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestic industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some
Page 2 - greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour. The effects of the division of labour, in
Page 15 - would not only load himself with a most unnecessary attention, but assume an authority which could safely be trusted not only to no single person, but to no council or senate whatever, and which would nowhere be so dangerous as in the hands of a man who had folly and presumption enough to fancy himself fit to exercise it.
Page 33 - regarded as any inconveniency to the whole. No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole hody of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own lahour as to
Page 262 - The discovery of America, and that of a passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope, are the two greatest and most important events recorded in the history of mankind. Their consequences have already been great ; but, in the short period of between two and three centuries which has elapsed since these discoveries were made,
Page 278 - part of this small number should go abroad to instruct foreigners. Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production ; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary