An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗
- Author: Adam Smith
- Performer: 0226763749
Book online «An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Adam Smith (ebooks children's books free .TXT) 📗». Author Adam Smith
palpable object ; the other an abstract notion, which though it can be made
sufficiently intelligible, is not altogether so natural and obvious.
But when barter ceases, and money has become the common instrument of
commerce, every particular commodity is more frequently exchanged for money
than for any other commodity. The butcher seldom carries his beef or his
mutton to the baker or the brewer, in order to exchange them for bread or
for beer ; but he carries them to the market, where he exchanges them for
money, and afterwards exchanges that money for bread and for beer. The
quantity of money which he gets for them regulates, too, the quantity of
bread and beer which he can afterwards purchase. It is more natural and
obvious to him, therefore, to estimate their value by the quantity of money,
the commodity for which he immediately exchanges them, than by that of
bread and beer, the commodities for which he can exchange them only by the
intervention of another commodity ; and rather to say that his butcher’s
meat is worth threepence or fourpence a-pound, than that it is worth three
or four pounds of bread, or three or four quarts of small beer. Hence it
comes to pass, that the exchangeable value of every commodity is more
frequently estimated by the quantity of money, than by the quantity either
of labour or of any other commodity which can be had in exchange for it.
Gold and silver, however, like every other commodity, vary in their value;
are sometimes cheaper and sometimes dearer, sometimes of easier and
sometimes of more difficult purchase. The quantity of labour which any
particular quantity of them can purchase or command, or the quantity of
other goods which it will exchange for, depends always upon the fertility or
barrenness of the mines which happen to be known about the time when such
exchanges are made. The discovery of the abundant mines of America, reduced,
in the sixteenth century, the value of gold and silver in Europe to about a
third of what it had been before. As it cost less labour to bring those
metals from the mine to the market, so, when they were brought thither, they
could purchase or command less labour; and this revolution in their value,
though perhaps the greatest, is by no means the only one of which history
gives some account. But as a measure of quantity, such as the natural foot,
fathom, or handful, which is continually varying in its own quantity, can
never be an accurate measure of the quantity of other things ; so a
commodity which is itself continually varying in its own value, can never be
an accurate measure of the value of other commodities. 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. The price which he pays
must always be the same, whatever may be the quantity of goods which he
receives in return for it. 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. At all times and
places, that is dear which it is difficult to come at, or which it costs
much labour to acquire; and that cheap which is to be had easily, or with
very little labour. Labour alone, therefore, never varying in its own value,
is alone the ultimate and real standard by which the value of all
commodities can at all times and places be estimated and compared. It is
their real price; money is their nominal price only.
But though equal quantities of labour are always of equal value to the
labourer, yet to the person who employs him they appear sometimes to be of
greater, and sometimes of smaller value. He purchases them sometimes with a
greater, and sometimes with a smaller quantity of goods, and to him the
price of labour seems to vary like that of all other things. It appears to
him dear in the one case, and cheap in the other. In reality, however, it is
the goods which are cheap in the one case, and dear in the other.
In this popular sense, therefore, labour, like commodities, may be said to
have a real and a nominal price. Its real price may be said to consist in
the quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which are given
for it ; its nominal price, in the quantity of money. The labourer is rich
or poor, is well or ill rewarded, in proportion to the real, not to the
nominal price of his labour.
The distinction between the real and the nominal price of commodities and
labour is not a matter of mere speculation, but may sometimes be of
considerable use in practice. The same real price is always of the same
value; but on account of the variations in the value of gold and silver, the
same nominal price is sometimes of very different values. When a landed
estate, therefore, is sold with a reservation of a perpetual rent, if it is
intended that this rent should always be of the same value, it is of
importance to the family in whose favour it is reserved, that it should not
consist in a particular sum of money. Its value would in this case be liable
to variations of two different kinds: first, to those which arise from the
different quantities of gold and silver which are contained at different
times in coin of the same denomination; and, secondly, to those which arise
from the different values of equal quantities of gold and silver at
different times.
Princes and sovereign states have frequently fancied that they had a
temporary interest to diminish the quantity of pure metal contained in their
coins; but they seldom have fancied that they had any to augment it. The
quantity of metal contained in the coins, I believe of all nations, has
accordingly been almost continually diminishing, and hardly ever augmenting.
Such variations, therefore, tend almost always to diminish the value of a
money rent.
The discovery of the mines of America diminished the value of gold and
silver in Europe. This diminution, it is commonly supposed, though I
apprehend without any certain proof, is still going on gradually, and is
likely to continue to do so for a long time. Upon this supposition,
therefore, such variations are more likely to diminish than to augment the
value of a money rent, even though it should be stipulated to be paid, not
in such a quantity of coined money of such a denomination (in so many pounds
sterling, for example), but in so many ounces, either of pure silver, or of
silver of a certain standard.
The rents which have been reserved in corn, have preserved their value much
better than those which have been reserved in money, even where the
denomination of the coin has not been altered. By the 18th of Elizabeth, it
was enacted, that a third of the rent of all college leases should be
reserved in corn, to be paid either in kind, or according to the current
prices at the nearest public market. The money arising from this corn rent,
though originally but a third of the whole, is, in the present times,
according to Dr. Blackstone, commonly near double of what arises from the
other two-thirds. The old money rents of colleges must, according to this
account, have sunk almost to a fourth part of their ancient value, or are
worth little more than a fourth part of the corn which they were formerly
worth. But since the reign of Philip and Mary, the denomination of the
English coin has undergone little or no alteration, and the same number of
pounds, shillings, and pence, have contained very nearly the same quantity
of pure silver. This degradation, therefore, in the value of the money rents
of colleges, has arisen altogether from the degradation in the price of
silver.
When the degradation in the value of silver is combined with the diminution
of the quantity of it contained in the coin of the same denomination, the
loss is frequently still greater. In Scotland, where the denomination of the
coin has undergone much greater alterations than it ever did in England, and
in France, where it has undergone still greater than it ever did in
Scotland, some ancient rents, originally of considerable value, have, in
this manner, been reduced almost to nothing.
Equal quantities of labour will, at distant times, be purchased more nearly
with equal quantities of corn, the subsistence of the labourer, than with
equal quantities of gold and silver, or, perhaps, of any other commodity.
Equal quantities of corn, therefore, will, at distant times, be more nearly
of the same real value, or enable the possessor to purchase or command more
nearly the same quantity of the labour of other people. They will do this, I
say, more nearly than equal quantities of almost any other commodity; for
even equal quantities of corn will not do it exactly. The subsistence of the
labourer, or the real price of labour, as I shall endeavour to shew
hereafter, is very different upon different occasions ; more liberal in a
society advancing to opulence, than in one that is standing still, and in
one that is standing still, than in one that is going backwards. Every
other commodity, however, will, at any particular time, purchase a greater
or smaller quantity of labour, in proportion to the quantity of subsistence
which it can purchase at that time. A rent, therefore, reserved in corn, is
liable only to the variations in the quantity of labour which a certain
quantity of corn can purchase. But a rent reserved in any other commodity is
liable, not only to the variations in the quantity of labour which any
particular quantity of corn can purchase, but to the variations in the
quantity of corn which can be purchased by any particular quantity of that
commodity.
Though the real value of a corn rent, it is to be observed, however, varies
much less from century to century than that of a money rent, it varies much
more from year to year. The money price of labour, as I shall endeavour to
shew hereafter, does not fluctuate from year to year with the money price of
corn, but seems to be everywhere accommodated, not to the temporary or
occasional, but to the average or ordinary price of that necessary of life.
The average or ordinary price of corn, again is regulated, as I shall
likewise endeavour to shew hereafter, by the value of silver, by the
richness or barrenness of the mines which supply the market with that metal,
or by the quantity of labour which must be employed, and consequently of
corn which must be consumed, in order to bring any particular quantity of
silver from the mine to the market. But the value of silver, though it
sometimes varies greatly from century to century, seldom varies much from
year to year, but frequently continues the same, or very nearly the same,
for half a century or a century together. The ordinary or average money
price of corn, therefore, may, during so long a period, continue the same,
or very nearly the same, too, and along with it the money price of labour,
provided, at least, the society continues, in other respects, in the same,
or nearly in the same, condition. In the mean time, the temporary and
Comments (0)