Political Economy: Its Objects, Uses, and Principles: Considered with Reference to the Condition of the American People. With a Summary for the Use of Students |
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Adam Smith advance advantages agriculture amount arts bour capital capitalist circulating capital circumstances clothing combination comforts commodity condition consumed cost creased cultivation demand desire distribution division of labour duction economists Edinburgh Review employed employers employment enable engaged England enjoyment equal eral evident exchange exchangeable value exertions expense farther favourable greater hand happiness human improvement increase individual industry interest invested journeymen labour land less lessen M'Intosh machinery manual labour manufacturing means ment monopoly moral nation natural natural laws necessary object obtain occupation operations owner parties perhaps persons Political Economy portion possession principles production profit proportion proprietor purchase quantity quired raise remuneration rent result serf share skill society soil subsistence supply tenant tend term things tion tivate tive trade truth Unions vidual wages wealth Wealth of Nations workmen writers
Popular passages
Page 152 - Rent is that portion of the produce of the earth, which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil.
Page 29 - When he cannot establish the right, he will not disdain to ameliorate the wrong; but like Solon, when he cannot establish the best system of laws, he will endeavour to establish the best that the people can bear.
Page 73 - land" includes not only the face of the earth, but every thing under it, or over it. And therefore, if a man grants all his lands, he grants thereby all his mines of metal and other fossils, his woods, his waters, and his houses, as w:ell as his fields and meadows.
Page 129 - The profit obtained by the owner of capital from its productive employment, whether in his own hands or those of another party, to whom it is lent, is to be viewed in the light of a compensation to him for abstaining for a time from the consumption of that portion of his property on his personal gratification...
Page 84 - And in the pursuit of this object, without any comprehensive wisdom, or any need of it, they cooperate, unknowingly, in conducting a system which, we may safely say, no human wisdom directed to that end could have conducted so well : — the system by which this enormous population is fed from day to day.
Page 249 - ... artificers, handicraftsmen and labourers have made confederacies and promises, and have sworn mutual oaths not only that they should not meddle one with another's work, and perform and finish that another hath begun, but also to constitute and appoint how much work they shall do in a day, and what hours and times they shall work...
Page 270 - States than the absence of those systems of internal restrictions and monopoly which continue to disfigure the state of society in other countries. No law exists here directly or indirectly confining man to a particular occupation or place, or excluding any citizen from any branch he may at any time think proper to pursue. Industry is in every respect perfectly free and unfettered; every species of trade, commerce, art, profession, and manufacture being equally opened to all, without requiring any...
Page 28 - it must be advantageous to know what is most perfect in the kind, that we may be able to bring any real constitution or form of government as near it as possible, by such gende alterations and innovations as may not give too great disturbance to society.
Page 269 - The object of imposing these restrictions is, of course, to enforce on each parish, the maintenance of its native poor ; and the resort of mechanics, from place to place, is permitted, only on conditions with which many of them are unable to comply. The consequence is, they are obliged to stay where they were born ; where, perhaps, there are already more hands than can find work ; and, from the decline of the place, even the established artisans want employment. Chained to such a spot, where chance...
Page 291 - Shrewsbury, complained that artificers, neither belonging to their company nor brought up to their trade, ' had of late, with great disorder, upon a mere covetous desire and mind intromitted with, and occupied the said trade...