Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations

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The Wealth of Nations: краткое содержание, описание и аннотация

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The foundation for all modern economic thought and political economy, «The Wealth of Nations» is the magnum opus of Scottish economist Adam Smith, who introduces the world to the very idea of economics and capitalism in the modern sense of the words. Smith details his argument in the following five books:
Introduction and plan of the work
Part 1 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
Chapter 1 Of the Division of Labour
Chapter 2 Of the Principle which gives Occasion to the Division of Labour
Chapter 3 That the Division of Labour is limited by the Extent of the Market
Chapter 4 Of the Origin and Use of Money
Chapter 5 Of the real and nominal Price of Commodities, or of their Price in Labour, and their Price in Money
Chapter 6 Of the component Parts of the Price of Commodities
Chapter 7 Of the natural and market Price of Commodities
Chapter 8 Of the Wages of Labour
Chapter 9 Of the Profits of Stock
Chapter 10 Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labour and Stock
Chapter 11 Of the Rent of Land
1. First Period
2. Second Period
3. Third Period
4. First Sort
5. Second Sort
6. Third Sort
7. Conclusion of the chapter
Part 2 Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock
Chapter 1 Of the Division of Stock
Chapter 2 Of Money considered as a particular Branch of the general Stock of the Society, or of the Experience of maintaining the National Capital
Chapter 3 Of the Accumulation of Capital, or of productive and unproductive Labour
Chapter 4 Of Stock lent at Interest
Chapter 5 Of the different Employment of Capitals
Part 3 Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations
Chapter 1 Of the Natural Progress of Opulence
Chapter 2 Of the Discouragement of Agriculture in the ancient State of Europe after the Fall of the Roman Empire
Chapter 3 Of the Rise and Progress of Cities and Towns, after the Fall of the Roman Empire
Chapter 4 How the Commerce of the Towns contributed to the Improvement of the Country
Part 4 Of Systems of political Economy
Chapter 1 Of the Principle of the commercial, or mercantile System
Chapter 2 Of Restraints upon the Importation from foreign Countries of such Goods as can be produced at Home
Chapter 3 Of the extraordinary Restraints upon the Importation of Goods of almost all Kinds, from those Countries with which the Balance is supposed to be disadvantageous
1. Of the Unreasonableness of those Restraints even upon the Principles of the Commercial System
2. Of the Unreasonableness of those extraordinary Restraints upon other Principles
Chapter 4 Of Drawbacks
Chapter 5 Of Bounties
Chapter 6 Of Treaties of Commerce
Chapter 7 Of Colonies
1. Of the Motives for establishing new Colonies
2. Causes of Prosperity of New Colonies
3. Of the Advantages which Europe has derived from the Discovery of America, and from that of a Passage to the East Indies by the Cape of Good Hope
Chapter 8 Conclusion of the Mercantile System
Chapter 9 Of the Agricultural Systems, or of those Systems of Political Economy, which represent the Produce of Land, as either the sole or the principal Source of the Revenue and Wealth of every Country
Part 5 Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
Chapter 1 Of the Expences of the Sovereign or Commonwealth
1. Of the Expense of Defence
2. Of the Expense of Justice
3. Of the Expense of Public Works and Public Institutions
4. Of the Expense of Supporting the Dignity of the Sovereign
5. Conclusion
Chapter 2 Of the Sources of the general or public Revenue of the Society
1. Of the Funds or Sources of Revenue which may peculiarly belong to the Sovereign or Commonwealth
2. Of Taxes
Chapter 3 Of public Debts
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In years of plenty, servants frequently leave their masters, and trust their subsistence to what they can make by their own industry. But the same cheapness of provisions, by increasing the fund which is destined for the maintenance of servants, encourages masters, farmers especially, to employ a greater number. Farmers upon such occasions expect more profit from their corn by maintaining a few more labouring servants than by selling it at a low price in the market. The demand for servants increases, while the number of those who offer to supply that demand diminishes. The price of labour, therefore, frequently rises in cheap years.

In years of scarcity, the difficulty and uncertainty of subsistence make all such people eager to return to service. But the high price of provisions, by diminishing the funds destined for the maintenance of servants, disposes masters rather to diminish than to increase the number of those they have. In dear years, too, poor independent workmen frequently consume the little stocks with which they had used to supply themselves with the materials of their work, and are obliged to become journeymen for subsistence. More people want employment than can easily get it; many are willing to take it upon lower terms than ordinary, and the wages of both servants and journeymen frequently sink in dear years.

Masters of all sorts, therefore, frequently make better bargains with their servants in dear than in cheap years, and find them more humble and dependent in the former than in the latter. They naturally, therefore, commend the former as more favourable to industry. Landlords and farmers, besides, two of the largest classes of masters, have another reason for being pleased with dear years. The rents of the one and the profits of the other depend very much upon the price of provisions. Nothing can be more absurd, however, than to imagine that men in general should work less when they work for themselves, than when they work for other people. A poor independent workman will generally be more industrious than even a journeyman who works by the piece. The one enjoys the whole produce of his own industry; the other shares it with his master. The one, in his separate independent state, is less liable to the temptations of bad company, which in large manufactories so frequently ruin the morals of the other. The superiority of the independent workman over those servants who are hired by the month or by the year, and whose wages and maintenance are the same whether they do much or do little, is likely to be still greater. Cheap years tend to increase the proportion of independent workmen to journeymen and servants of all kinds, and dear years to diminish it.

A French author of great knowledge and ingenuity, Mr. Messance, receiver of the taillies in the election of St. Etienne, endeavours to show that the poor do more work in cheap than in dear years, by comparing the quantity and value of the goods made upon those different occasions in three different manufactures; one of coarse woollens carried on at Elbeuf; one of linen, and another of silk, both which extend through the whole generality of Rouen. It appears from his account, which is copied from the registers of the public offices, that the quantity and value of the goods made in all those three manufactures has generally been greater in cheap than in dear years; and that it has always been greatest in the cheapest, and least in the dearest years. All the three seem to be stationary manufactures, or which, though their produce may vary somewhat from year to year, are upon the whole neither going backwards nor forwards.

The manufacture of linen in Scotland, and that of coarse woollens in the West Riding of Yorkshire, are growing manufactures, of which the produce is generally, though with some variations, increasing both in quantity and value. Upon examining, however, the accounts which have been published of their annual produce, I have not been able to observe that its variations have had any sensible connection with the dearness or cheapness of the seasons. In 1740, a year of great scarcity, both manufactures, indeed, appear to have declined very considerably. But in 1756, another year of great scarcity, the Scotch manufacture made more than ordinary advances. The Yorkshire manufacture, indeed, declined, and its produce did not rise to what it had been in 1755 till 1766, after the repeal of the American Stamp Act. In that and the following year it greatly exceeded what it had ever been before, and it has continued to advance ever since.

The produce of all great manufactures for distant sale must necessarily depend, not so much upon the dearness or cheapness of the seasons in the countries where they are carried on as upon the circumstances which affect the demand in the countries where they are consumed; upon peace or war, upon the prosperity or declension of other rival manufactures, and upon the good or bad humour of their principal customers. A great part of the extraordinary work, besides, which is probably done in cheap years, never enters the public registers of manufactures. The men servants who leave their masters become independent labourers. The women return to their parents, and commonly spin in order to make clothes for themselves and their families. Even the independent workmen do not always work for public sale, but are employed by some of their neighbours in manufactures for family use. The produce of their labour, therefore, frequently makes no figure in those public registers of which the records are sometimes published with so much parade, and from which our merchants and manufacturers would often vainly pretend to announce the prosperity or declension of the greatest empires.

Though the variations in the price of labour not only do not always correspond with those in the price of provisions, but are frequently quite opposite, we must not, upon this account, imagine that the price of provisions has no influence upon that of labour. The money price of labour is necessarily regulated by two circumstances; the demand for labour, and the price of the necessaries and conveniences of life. The demand for labour, according as it happens to be increasing, stationary, or declining, or to require an increasing, stationary, or declining population, determines the quantity of the necessaries and conveniencies of life which must be given to the labourer; and the money price of labour is determined by what is requisite for purchasing this quantity. Though the money price of labour, therefore, is sometimes high where the price of provisions is low, it would be still higher, the demand continuing the same, if the price of provisions was high.

It is because the demand for labour increases in years of sudden and extraordinary plenty, and diminishes in those of sudden and extraordinary scarcity, that the money price of labour sometimes rises in the one and sinks in the other.

In a year of sudden and extraordinary plenty, there are funds in the hands of many of the employers of industry sufficient to maintain and employ a greater number of industrious people than had been employed the year before; and this extraordinary number cannot always be had. Those masters, therefore, who want more workmen bid against one another, in order to get them, which sometimes raises both the real and the money price of their labour.

The contrary of this happens in a year of sudden and extraordinary scarcity. The funds destined for employing industry are less than they had been the year before. A considerable number of people are thrown out of employment, who bid against one another, in order to get it, which sometimes lowers both the real and the money price of labour. In 1740, a year of extraordinary scarcity, many people were willing to work for bare subsistence. In the succeeding years of plenty, it was more difficult to get labourers and servants.

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