An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗
- Author: Adam Smith
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which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve
would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to
divert himself with his play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that
has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this
manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.
All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the
inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements
have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make
them became the business of a peculiar trade; and some by that of those who
are called philosophers, or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do
any thing, but to observe every thing, and who, upon that account, are often
capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar
objects. in the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like
every other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a
particular class of citizens. Like every other employment, too, it is
subdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords
occupation to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers ; and this
subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business,
improve dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in
his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity
of science is considerably increased by it.
It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts,
in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a
well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the
lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own
work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other
workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a
great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity or, what comes to the
same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them
abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as
amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself
through all the different ranks of the society.
Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or daylabourer in a
civilized and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of
people, of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed
in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen
coat, for example, which covers the daylabourer, as coarse and rough as it
may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of
workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder,
the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser,
with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete
even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must
have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen
to others who often live in a very distant part of the country ? How much
commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors,
sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together
the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the
remotest corners of the world ? What a variety of labour, too, is necessary
in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen ! To say
nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of
the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a
variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine,
the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of
the furnace for smelting the ore the feller of the timber, the burner of
the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brickmaker, the
bricklayer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the millwright, the forger,
the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce
them. Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his
dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next
his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all
the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares
his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the
bowels of the earth, and brought to him, perhaps, by a long sea and a long
land-carriage, all the other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of
his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he
serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in
preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat
and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge
and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without
which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very
comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen
employed in producing those different conveniencies ; if we examine, I say,
all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about
each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and
co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized
country could not be provided, even according to, what we very falsely
imagine, the easy and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated.
Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his
accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy ; and yet it
may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince does not
always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant, as the
accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the
absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.
CHAPTER II.
OF THE PRINCIPLE WHICH GIVES OCCASION TO
THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not
originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that
general opulence to which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though
very slow and gradual, consequence of a certain propensity in human nature,
which has in view no such extensive utility ; the propensity to truck,
barter, and exchange one thing for another.
Whether this propensity be one of those original principles in human nature,
of which no further account can be given, or whether, as seems more
probable, it be the necessary consequence of the faculties of reason and
speech, it belongs not to our present subject to inquire. It is common to
all men, and to be found in no other race of animals, which seem to know
neither this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in running
down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of acting in some sort of
concert. Each turns her towards his companion, or endeavours to intercept
her when his companion turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the
effect of any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions
in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog make a
fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with another dog.
Nobody ever saw one animal, by its gestures and natural cries signify to
another, this is mine, that yours ; I am willing to give this for that. When
an animal wants to obtain something either of a man, or of another animal,
it has no other means of persuasion, but to gain the favour of those whose
service it requires. A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours,
by a thousand attractions, to engage the attention of its master who is at
dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes uses the same arts
with his brethren, and when he has no other means of engaging them to act
according to his inclinations, endeavours by every servile and fawning
attention to obtain their good will. He has not time, however, to do this
upon every occasion. In civilized society he stands at all times in need of
the co-operation and assistance of great multitudes, while his whole life is
scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few persons. In almost every
other race of animals, each individual, when it is grown up to maturity, is
entirely independent, and in its natural state has occasion for the
assistance of no other living creature. But man has almost constant
occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect
it from their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can
interest their self-love in his favour, and shew them that it is for their
own advantage to do for him what he requires of them. Whoever offers to
another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this. Give me that which I
want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of every such
offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far
greater part of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from
the benevolence of the butcher the brewer, or the baker that we expect our
dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address ourselves,
not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our
own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody but a beggar chooses to
depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar
does not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people,
indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But though
this principle ultimately provides him with all the necessaries of life
which he has occasion for, it neither does nor can provide him with them as
he has occasion for them. The greater part of his occasional wants are
supplied in the same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter,
and by purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food.
The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other
clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for money,
with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.
As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from one
another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in need
of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion
to the division of labour. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds, a particular
person makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and dexterity
than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison, with
his companions; and he finds at last that he can, in this manner, get more
cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From
a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows
to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another excels
in making the frames and covers of their little huts or moveable houses. He
is accustomed to be of use in this way to his neighbours,
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