A Treatise on Political Economy: Or The Production, Distribution, and Consumption of Wealth |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
abundance Adam Smith advance advantage agents agriculture AMERICAN EDITOR amount annual assignats authority balance of trade bank Bank of England benefit branch bullion capital cent charge circulation circumstances coin commerce commodities consequently consumed consumption cultivation demand derived dollars duction effect employed England equal established Europe exchange exertion expense export favour foreign France gold human import increase individual industry interest kind labour land less livres tournois loss Louis XIV mankind manufacture matter means ment merchant millions nature never object operation paid particular political economy population portion possession precious metals principles productive agency products consumed profit proportion proprietor purchase quantity ratio reason rent respect revenue seignorage silver Smith specie subsistence sumer supply supposed taxation thing tion trade unproductive utility wants wealth Wealth of Nations wheat Wherefore whole yield
Popular passages
Page 246 - Equal quantities of labour, at all times and places, may be said to be of equal value to the labourer. In his ordinary state of health, strength and spirits ; in the ordinary degree of his skill and dexterity, he must always lay down the same portion of his ease, his liberty, and his happiness.
Page 175 - The statesman, who should attempt to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, 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 94 - ... the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
Page xi - ... binds together, by one common tie of interest and intercourse, the universal society of nations throughout the civilised world.
Page 174 - No regulation of commerce can increase the quantity of industry in any society beyond what its capital can maintain. It can only divert a part of it into a direction into which it might not otherwise have gone...
Page 246 - Of these, indeed, it may sometimes purchase a greater and sometimes a smaller quantity; but it is their value which varies, not that of the labour which purchases them.
Page 180 - ... being paid in proportion to the little work which he could execute, and paying in his turn for the materials which he might sometimes spoil through awkwardness and inexperience. His education would generally in this way be more effectual, and always less tedious and expensive. The master, indeed, would be a loser. He would lose all the wages of the apprentice, which he now saves, for seven years together. In the end, perhaps, the apprentice himself would be a loser.
Page xi - Under a system of perfectly free commerce, each country naturally devotes its capital and labour to such employments as are most beneficial to each. This pursuit of individual advantage is admirably connected with the universal good of the whole. By stimulating industry, by rewarding ingenuity, and by using most efficaciously the peculiar powers bestowed by nature, it distributes labour most effectively and most economically : while, by increasing the general mass of productions, it diffuses general...