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
difference between the genius of the British constitution, which protects
and governs North America, and that of the mercantile company which
oppresses and domineers in the East Indies, cannot, perhaps, be better
illustrated than by the different state of those countries.
The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the necessary effect, so
it is the natural symptom of increasing national wealth. The scanty
maintenance of the labouring poor, on the other hand, is the natural
symptom that things are at a stand, and their starving condition, that
they are going fast backwards.
In Great Britain, the wages of labour seem, in the present times, to be
evidently more than what is precisely necessary to enable the labourer to
bring up a family. In order to satisfy ourselves upon this point, it will
not be necessary to enter into any tedious or doubtful calculation of what
may be the lowest sum upon which it is possible to do this. There are many
plain symptoms, that the wages of labour are nowhere in this country
regulated by this lowest rate, which is consistent with common humanity.
First, in almost every part of Great Britain there is a distinction, even
in the lowest species of labour, between summer and winter wages. Summer
wages are always highest. But, on account of the extraordinary expense of
fuel, the maintenance of a family is most expensive in winter. Wages,
therefore, being highest when this expense is lowest, it seems evident
that they are not regulated by what is necessary for this expense, but by
the quantity and supposed value of the work. A labourer, it may be said,
indeed, ought to save part of his summer wages, in order to defray his
winter expense; and that, through the whole year, they do not exceed what
is necessary to maintain his family through the whole year. A slave,
however, or one absolutely dependent on us for immediate subsistence,
would not be treated in this manner. His daily subsistence would be
proportioned to his daily necessities.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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