8
The Wealth of Nations
AN INQUIRY INTO THE
NATURE AND CAUSES
OF
THE WEALTH OF
NATIONS
by
Adam Smith
INTR
INTR
INTR
INTR
INTRODUCTION AND PL
ODUCTION AND PL
ODUCTION AND PL
ODUCTION AND PL
ODUCTION AND PLAN OF
AN OF
AN OF
AN OF
AN OF THE
THE
THE
THE
THE
W
W
W
W
WORK
ORK
ORK
ORK
ORK
T
HE
ANNUAL
LABOUR
of every nation is the fund which
originally supplies it with all the necessaries and
conveniencies of life which it annually consumes, and
which consist always either in the immediate produce of that labour,
or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.
According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with
it, bears a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who
are to consume it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with
all the necessaries and conveniencies for which it has occasion.
But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two
different circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment
with which its labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the
proportion between the number of those who are employed in
useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed. What-
ever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of any particular
nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must, in
that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.
The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to de-
pend more upon the former of those two circumstances than upon
the latter. Among the savage nations of hunters and fishers, every
individual who is able to work is more or less employed in useful
labour, and endeavours to provide, as well as he can, the neces-
saries and conveniencies of life, for himself, and such of his family
or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm, to go a-
hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor,
that, from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at least think
themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly destroy-
ing, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people,