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
In this state of things, the whole produce of labour does not always
belong to the labourer. He must in most cases share it with the owner of
the stock which employs him. Neither is the quantity of labour commonly
employed in acquiring or producing any commodity, the only circumstance
which can regulate the quantity which it ought commonly to purchase,
command or exchange for. An additional quantity, it is evident, must be
due for the profits of the stock which advanced the wages and furnished
the materials of that labour.
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the
landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and
demand a rent even for its natural produce. The wood of the forest, the
grass of the field, and all the natural fruits of the earth, which, when
land was in common, cost the labourer only the trouble of gathering them,
come, even to him, to have an additional price fixed upon them. He must
then pay for the licence to gather them, and must give up to the landlord
a portion of what his labour either collects or produces. This portion,
or, what comes to the same thing, the price of this portion, constitutes
the rent of land, and in the price of the greater part of commodities,
makes a third component part.
The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be
observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of
them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value, not only of that
part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which
resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into profit.
In every society, the price of every commodity finally resolves itself
into some one or other, or all of those three parts; and in every improved
society, all the three enter, more or less, as component parts, into the
price of the far greater part of commodities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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