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
So great a part of the circulating capital being continually withdrawn
from it, in order to be placed in the other two branches of the general
stock of the society, it must in its turn require continual supplies
without which it would soon cease to exist. These supplies are principally
drawn from three sources; the produce of land, of mines, and of fisheries.
These afford continual supplies of provisions and materials, of which part
is afterwards wrought up into finished work and by which are replaced the
provisions, materials, and finished work, continually withdrawn from the
circulating capital. From mines, too, is drawn what is necessary for
maintaining and augmenting that part of it which consists in money. For
though, in the ordinary course of business, this part is not, like the
other three, necessarily withdrawn from it, in order to be placed in the
other two branches of the general stock of the society, it must, however,
like all other things, be wasted and worn out at last, and sometimes, too,
be either lost or sent abroad, and must, therefore, require continual,
though no doubt much smaller supplies.
Land, mines, and fisheries, require all both a fixed and circulating
capital to cultivate them; and their produce replaces, with a profit not
only those capitals, but all the others in the society. Thus the farmer
annually replaces to the manufacturer the provisions which he had
consumed, and the materials which he had wrought up the year before; and
the manufacturer replaces to the farmer the finished work which he had
wasted and worn out in the same time. This is the real exchange that is
annually made between those two orders of people, though it seldom happens
that the rude produce of the one, and the manufactured produce of the
other, are directly bartered for one another; because it seldom happens
that the farmer sells his corn and his cattle, his flax and his wool, to
the very same person of whom he chuses to purchase the clothes, furniture,
and instruments of trade, which he wants. He sells, therefore, his rude
produce for money, with which he can purchase, wherever it is to be had,
the manufactured produce he has occasion for. Land even replaces, in part
at least, the capitals with which fisheries and mines are cultivated. It
is the produce of land which draws the fish from the waters; and it is the
produce of the surface of the earth which extracts the minerals from its
bowels.
The produce of land, mines, and fisheries, when their natural fertility is
equal, is in proportion to the extent and proper application of the
capitals employed about them. When the capitals are equal, and equally
well applied, it is in proportion to their natural fertility.
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