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
A gentleman who farms a part of his own estate, after paying the expense
of cultivation, should gain both the rent of the landlord and the profit
of the farmer. He is apt to denominate, however, his whole gain, profit,
and thus confounds rent with profit, at least in common language. The
greater part of our North American and West Indian planters are in this
situation. They farm, the greater part of them, their own estates; and
accordingly we seldom hear of the rent of a plantation, but frequently
of its profit.
Common farmers seldom employ any overseer to direct the general
operations of the farm. They generally, too, work a good deal with their
own hands, as ploughmen, harrowers, &c. What remains of the crop, after
paying the rent, therefore, should not only replace to them their stock
employed in cultivation, together with its ordinary profits, but pay
them the wages which are due to them, both as labourers and overseers.
Whatever remains, however, after paying the rent and keeping up the
stock, is called profit. But wages evidently make a part of it. The
farmer, by saving these wages, must necessarily gain them. Wages,
therefore, are in this case confounded with profit.
An independent manufacturer, who has stock enough both to purchase
materials, and to maintain himself till he can carry his work to market,
should gain both the wages of a journeyman who works under a master, and
the profit which that master makes by the sale of that journeyman's
work. His whole gains, however, are commonly called profit, and wages
are, in this case, too, confounded with profit.
A gardener who cultivates his own garden with his own hands, unites in
his own person the three different characters, of landlord, farmer, and
labourer. His produce, therefore, should pay him the rent of the first,
the profit of the second, and the wages of the third. The whole,
however, is commonly considered as the earnings of his labour. Both rent
and profit are, in this case, confounded with wages.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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