An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsSmith, Adam
History
An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Smith, Adam
Economics
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 day-labourer, 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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