Adam Smith - The Wealth of Nations

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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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The second event was the bounty upon the exportation of corn granted in 1688. The bounty, it has been thought by many people, by encouraging tillage, may, in a long course of years, have occasioned a greater abundance, and consequently a greater cheapness of corn in the home-market than what would otherwise have taken place there. How far the bounty could produce this effect at any time, I shall examine hereafter; I shall only observe at present that, between 1688 and 1700, it had not time to produce any such effect. During this short period its only effect must have been, by encouraging the exportation of the surplus produce of every year, and thereby hindering the abundance of one year from compensating the scarcity of another, to raise the price in the home-market. The scarcity which prevailed in England from 1693 to 1699, both inclusive, though no doubt principally owing to the badness of the seasons, and, therefore, extending through a considerable part of Europe, must have been somewhat enhanced by the bounty. In 1699, accordingly, the further exportation of corn was prohibited for nine months.

There was a third event which occurred in the course of the same period, and which, though it could not occasion any scarcity of corn, nor, perhaps, any augmentation in the real quantity of silver which was usually paid for it, must necessarily have occasioned some augmentation in the nominal sum. This event was the great debasement of the silver coin, by clipping and wearing. This evil had begun in the reign of Charles II and had gone on continually increasing till 1695; at which time, as we may learn from Mr. Lowndes, the current silver coin was, at an average, near five-and-twenty per cent below its standard value. But the nominal sum which constitutes the market price of every commodity is necessarily regulated, not so much by the quantity of silver, which, according to the standard, ought to be contained in it, as by that which, it is found by experience, actually is contained in it. This nominal sum, therefore, is necessarily higher when the coin is much debased by clipping and wearing than when near to its standard value.

In the course of the present century, the silver coin has not at any time been more below its standard weight than it is at present. But though very much defaced, its value has been kept up by that of the gold coin for which it is exchanged. For though before the late recoinage, the gold coin was a good deal defaced too, it was less so than the silver. In 1695, on the contrary, the value of the silver coin was not kept up by the gold coin; a guinea then commonly exchanging for thirty shillings of the worn and clipt silver. Before the late recoinage of the gold, the price of silver bullion was seldom higher than five shillings and sevenpence an ounce, which is but fivepence above the mint price. But in 1695, the common price of silver bullion was six shillings and fivepence an ounce, which is fifteenpence above the mint price. Even before the late recoinage of the gold, therefore, the coin, gold and silver together, when compared with silver bullion, was not supposed to be more than eight per cent below its standard value. In 1695, on the contrary, it had been supposed to be near five-and-twenty per cent below that value. But in the beginning of the present century, that is, immediately after the great recoinage in King William's time. the greater part of the current silver coin must have been still nearer to its standard weight than it is at present. In the course of the present century, too, there has been no great public calamity, such as the civil war, which could either discourage tillage, or interrupt the interior commerce of the country. And though the bounty, which has taken place through the greater part of this century, must always raise the price of corn somewhat higher than it otherwise would be in the actual state of tillage; yet as, in the course of this century, the bounty has had full time to produce all the good effects commonly imputed to it, to encourage tillage, and thereby to increase the quantity of corn in the home market, it may, upon the principles of a system which I shall explain and examine hereafter, be supposed to have done something to lower the price of that commodity the one way, as well as to raise it the other. It is by many people supposed to have done more. In the sixty-four first years of the present century accordingly the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market appears, by the accounts of Eton College, to have been L2 os. 6 1/2d., which is about ten shillings and sixpence, or more than five-and-twenty per cent, cheaper than it had been during the sixty-four last years of the last century; and about 9s. 6d. cheaper than it had been during the sixteen years preceding 1636, when the discovery of the abundant mines of America may be supposed to have produced its full effect; and about one shilling cheaper than it had been in the twenty-six years preceding 1620, before that discovery can well be supposed to have produced its full effect. According to this account, the average price of middle wheat, during these sixty-four first years of the present century, comes out to have been about thirty-two shillings the quarter of eight bushels.

The value of silver, therefore, seems to have risen somewhat in proportion to that of corn during the course of the present century, and it had probably begun to do so even some time before the end of the last.

In 1687, the price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat at Windsor market was L1 5s. 2d. the lowest price at which it had ever been from 1595.

In 1688, Mr. Gregory King, a man famous for his knowledge in matters of this kind, estimated the average price of wheat in years of moderate plenty to be to the grower 3s. 6d. the bushel, or eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter. The grower's price I understand to be the same with what is sometimes called the contract price, or the price at which a farmer contracts for a certain number of years to deliver a certain quantity of corn to a dealer. As a contract of this kind saves the farmer the expense and trouble of marketing, the contract price is generally lower than what is supposed to be the average market price. Mr. King had judged eight-and-twenty shillings the quarter to be at that time the ordinary contract price in years of moderate plenty. Before the scarcity occasioned by the late extraordinary course of bad seasons, it was, I have been assured, the ordinary contract price in all common years.

In 1688 was granted the Parliamentary bounty upon the exportation of corn. The country gentlemen, who then composed a still greater proportion of the legislature than they do at present, had felt that the money price of corn was falling. The bounty was an expedient to raise it artificially to the high price at which it had frequently been sold in the times of Charles I and III. It was to take place, therefore, till wheat was so high as forty-eight shillings the quarter, that is, twenty shillings, or five-sevenths dearer than Mr. King had in that very year estimated the grower's price to be in times of moderate plenty. If his calculations deserve any part of the reputation which they have obtained very universally, eight-and-forty shillings the quarter was a price which, without some such expedient as the bounty, could not at that time be expected, except in years of extraordinary scarcity. But the government of King William was not then fully settled. It was in no condition to refuse anything to the country gentlemen, from whom it was at that very time soliciting the first establishment of the annual land-tax.

The value of silver, therefore, in proportion to that of corn, had probably risen somewhat before the end of the last century; and it seems to have continued to do so during the course of the greater part of the present; though the necessary operation of the bounty must have hindered that rise from being so sensible as it otherwise would have been in the actual state of tillage.

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