An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsSmith, Adam
General
An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Smith, Adam
Economics
The spinning of linen yarn is carried on in Scotland nearly in the same
way as the knitting of stockings, by servants, who are chiefly hired for
other purposes. They earn but a very scanty subsistence, who endeavour
to get their livelihood by either of those trades. In most parts of
Scotland, she is a good spinner who can earn twentypence a-week.
In opulent countries, the market is generally so extensive, that any one
trade is sufficient to employ the whole labour and stock of those who
occupy it. Instances of people living by one employment, and, at the
same time, deriving some little advantage from another, occur chiefly in
poor countries. The following instance, however, of something of the
same kind, is to be found in the capital of a very rich one. There is no
city in Europe, I believe, in which house-rent is dearer than in London,
and yet I know no capital in which a furnished apartment can be hired so
cheap. Lodging is not only much cheaper in London than in Paris; it is
much cheaper than in Edinburgh, of the same degree of goodness; and,
what may seem extraordinary, the dearness of house-rent is the cause of
the cheapness of lodging. The dearness of house-rent in London arises,
not only from those causes which render it dear in all great capitals,
the dearness of labour, the dearness of all the materials of building,
which must generally be brought from a great distance, and, above all,
the dearness of ground-rent, every landlord acting the part of a
monopolist, and frequently exacting a higher rent for a single acre of
bad land in a town, than can be had for a hundred of the best in the
country, but it arises in part from the peculiar manners and customs of
the people, which oblige every master of a family to hire a whole house
from top to bottom. A dwelling-house in England means every thing that
is contained under the same roof. In France, Scotland, and many other
parts of Europe, it frequently means no more than a single storey. A
tradesman in London is obliged to hire a whole house in that part of the
town where his customers live. His shop is upon the ground floor, and he
and his family sleep in the garret; and he endeavours to pay a part of
his house-rent by letting the two middle storeys to lodgers. He expects
to maintain his family by his trade, and not by his lodgers. Whereas at
Paris and Edinburgh, people who let lodgings have commonly no other
means of subsistence; and the price of the lodging must pay, not only
the rent of the house, but the whole expense of the family.
PART II.--_Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe._
Such are the inequalities in the whole of the advantages and
disadvantages of the different employments of labour and stock, which
the defect of any of the three requisites above mentioned must occasion,
even where there is the most perfect liberty. But the policy of Europe,
by not leaving things at perfect liberty, occasions other inequalities
of much greater importance.
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