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
expense to five hundred, will naturally employ the other five hundred in
purchasing an additional quantity of materials, to be wrought up by an
additional number of workmen. The quantity of that work, therefore, which
his machinery was useful only for performing, will naturally be augmented,
and with it all the advantage and conveniency which the society can derive
from that work.
The expense of maintaining the fixed capital in a great country, may very
properly be compared to that of repairs in a private estate. The expense
of repairs may frequently be necessary for supporting the produce of the
estate, and consequently both the gross and the neat rent of the landlord.
When by a more proper direction, however, it can be diminished without
occasioning any diminution of produce, the gross rent remains at least the
same as before, and the neat rent is necessarily augmented.
But though the whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital is thus
necessarily excluded from the neat revenue of the society, it is not the
same case with that of maintaining the circulating capital. Of the four
parts of which this latter capital is composed, money, provisions,
materials, and finished work, the three last, it has already been
observed, are regularly withdrawn from it, and placed either in the fixed
capital of the society, or in their stock reserved for immediate
consumption. Whatever portion of those consumable goods is not employed in
maintaining the former, goes all to the latter, and makes a part of the
neat revenue of the society. The maintenance of those three parts of the
circulating capital, therefore, withdraws no portion of the annual produce
from the neat revenue of the society, besides what is necessary for
maintaining the fixed capital.
The circulating capital of a society is in this respect different from
that of an individual. That of an individual is totally excluded from
making any part of his neat revenue, which must consist altogether in his
profits. But though the circulating capital of every individual makes a
part of that of the society to which he belongs, it is not upon that
account totally excluded from making a part likewise of their neat
revenue. Though the whole goods in a merchant’s shop must by no means be
placed in his own stock reserved for immediate consumption, they may in
that of other people, who, from a revenue derived from other funds, may
regularly replace their value to him, together with its profits, without
occasioning any diminution either of his capital or of theirs.
Money, therefore, is the only part of the circulating capital of a
society, of which the maintenance can occasion any diminution in their
neat revenue.
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