number of useful and productive labourers, it
will hereafter appear, is everywhere in proportion
to the quantity of capital stock which is
employed in setting them to work, and to the
particular way in which it is so employed.
The second book, therefore, treats of the nature
of capital stock, of the manner in which
it is gradually accumulated, and of the different
quantities of labour which it puts into motion,
according to the different ways in which
it is employed.
Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill,
dexterity, and judgment, in the application of
labour, have followed very different plans in
the general conduct or direction of it; and
those plans have not all been equally favourable
to the greatness of its produce. The policy
of some nations has given extraordinary
encouragement to the industry of the country;
that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce
any nation has dealt equally and impartially
with every sort of industry. Since the downfall
of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe
has been more favourable to arts, manufactures,
and commerce, the industry of towns,
than to agriculture, the industry of the country.
The circumstances which seem to have
introduced and established this policy are explained
in the third book.
Though those different plans were, perhaps,
first introduced by the private interests and
prejudices of particular orders of men, without
any regard to, or foresight of, their consequences
upon the general welfare of the society;
yet they have given occasion to very
different theories of political economy; of
which some magnify the importance of that
industry which is carried on in towns, others
of that which is carried on in the country.
Those theories have had a considerable influence,
not only upon the opinions of men of
learning, but upon the public conduct of
princes and sovereign states. I have endeavoured,
in the fourth book, to explain as fully
and distinctly as I can those different theories,
and the principal effects which they have produced
in different ages and nations.
To explain in what has consisted the revenue
of the great body of the people, or what
has been the nature of those funds, which, in
different ages and nations, have supplied their
annual consumption, is the object of these
four first books. The fifth and last book
treats of the revenue of the sovereign, or commonwealth.
In this book I have endeavoured
to shew, first, what are the necessary expenses
of the sovereign, or commonwealth; which of
those expenses ought to be defrayed by the
general contribution of the whole society, and
which of them, by that of some particular part
only, or of some particular members of it:
secondly, what are the different methods in
which the whole society may be made to contribute
towards defraying the expenses incumbent
on the whole society, and what are the
principal advantages and inconveniencies of
each of those methods; and, thirdly and lastly,
what are the reasons and causes which have
induced almost all modern governments to
mortgage some part of this revenue, or to
contract debts; and what have been the effects
of those debts upon the real wealth, the
annual produce of the land and labour of the
society.
BOOK I.
OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR,
AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY
DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAP. I.
OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR.
The greatest improvements in the productive
powers of labour, and the greater part of the
skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which it
is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have
been the effects of the division of labour.
The effects of the division of labour, in
the general business of society, will be more
easily understood, by considering in what manner
it operates in some particular manufactures.
It is commonly supposed to be carried
furthest in some very trifling ones; not
perhaps that it really is carried further in them
than in others of more importance: but in
those trifling manufactures which are destined
to supply the small wants of but a small number
of people, the whole number of workmen
must necessarily be small; and those employed
in every different branch of the work can often