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AN

INQUIRY

INTO

THE NATURE AND CAUSES

OF THE

WEALTH OF NATIONS.

INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.

THE 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.

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 destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly supplied; and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

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. Whatever 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 up-cording to which its produce is naturally dison those two circumstances.

The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend 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 necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself, and such of his family or tribe as are rither too old, or too young, or too infirm, to

The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the order ac

tributed among the different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of the first book of this Inquiry.

Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The

A

number of useful and productive labourers, it | Industry which is carried on in towns, others 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.

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.

BOOK I.

or 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.

are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.

ten be collected into the same workhouse, and two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four placed at once under the view of the spectator. thousand eight hundredth, part of what they In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a number of workmen, that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into a much greater number of parts, than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, and has accordingly been much less observed.

In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling one, though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employTo take an example, therefore, from a very ments from one another, seems to have taken trifling manufacture, but one in which the di- place in consequence of this advantage. This vision of labour has been very often taken no- separation, too, is generally carried furthest in tice of, the trade of a pin-maker: a workman t'ose countries which enjoy the highest degree not educated to this business (which the divi- of industry and improvement; what is the sion of labour has rendered a distinct trade), work of one man, in a rude state of society, nor acquainted with the use of the machinery being generally that of several in an improved employed in it (to the invention of which the one. In every improved society, the farmer same division of labour has probably given is generally nothing but a farmer; the manuoccasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his ut-facturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The most industry, make one pin in a day, and cer- labour, too, which is necessary to produce any tainly could not make twenty. But in the one complete manufacture, is almost always way in which this business is now carried on, divided among a great number of hands. How not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, many different trades are employed in each but it is divided into a number of branches, branch of the linen and woollen manufactures, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar from the growers of the flax and the wool, to trades. One man draws out the wire; ano- the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to ther straights it; a third cuts it; a fourth the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The napoints it; a fifth grinds it at the top for re-ture of agriculture, indeed, does not admit of ceiving the head; to make the head requires so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so comtwo or three distinct operations; to put it on plete a separation of one business from anois a peculiar business; to whiten the pins is ther, as manufactures. It is impossible to se another; it is even a trade by itself to put them parate so entirely the business of the grazier into the paper; and the important business of from that of the corn-farmer, as the trade of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into the carpenter is commonly separated from that about eighteen distinct operations, which, in of the smith. The spinner is almost always some manufactories, are all performed by dis- a distinct person from the weaver; but the tinct hands, though in others the same man will ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the sometimes perform two or three of them. I seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the have seen a small manufactory of this kind, same. The occasions for those different sorts where ten men only were employed, and where of labour returning with the different seasons some of them consequently performed two or of the year, it is impossible that one man three distinct operations. But though they should be constantly employed in any one of were very poor, and therefore but indifferently them. This impossibility of making so comaccommodated with the necessary machinery, plete and entire a separation of all the differthey could, when they exerted themselves, ent branches of labour employed in agriculmake among them about twelve pounds of ture, is perhaps the reason why the improvepins in a day. There are in a pound upwards ment of the productive powers of labour, in of four thousand pins of a middling size. this art, does not always keep pace with their Those ten persons, therefore, could make a- improvement in manufactures. The most o mong them upwards of forty-eight thousand pulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making neighbours in agriculture as well as in manua tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might factures; but they are commonly more disbe considered as making four thousand eight tinguished by their superiority in the latter hundred pins in a day. But if they had all than in the former. Their lands are in genewrought separately and independently, and ral better cultivated, and having more labour without any of them having been educated to and expense bestowed upon them, produce this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly, not the

more in proportion to the extent and natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much more than in pro

portion to the superiority of labour and ex- able to make above two or three hundred pense. In agriculture, the labour of the rich nails in a day, and those, too, very bad ones. country is not always much more productive A smith who has been accustomed to make than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never nails, but whose sole or principal business has so much more productive, as it commonly is not been that of a nailer, can seldom, with his in manufactures. The corn of the rich coun- utmost diligence, make more than eight huntry, therefore, will not always, in the same dred or a thousand nails in a day. I have degree of goodness, come cheaper to market seen several boys, under twenty years of age, than that of the poor. The corn of Poland, who had never exercised any other trade but in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of making nails, and who, when they exthat of France, notwithstanding the superior erted themselves, could make, each of them, opulence and improvement of the latter coun- upwards of two thousand three hundred nails try. The corn of France is, in the corn-pro-in a day. The making of a nail, however, is vinces, fully as good, and in most years near- by no means one of the simplest operations. ly about the same price with the corn of Eng- The same person blows the bellows, stirs or land, though, in opulence and improvement, mends the fire as there is occasion, heats the France is perhaps inferior to England. The iron, and forges every part of the nail: in corn-lands of England, however, are better forging the head, too, he is obliged to change cultivated than those of France, and the corn-his tools. The different operations into which lands of France are said to be much better the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is cultivated than those of Poland. But though subdivided, are all of them much more simple, the poor country, notwithstanding the infe- and the dexterity of the person, of whose life riority of its cultivation, can, in some measure, it has been the sole business to perform them, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness is usually much greater. The rapidity with of its corn, it can pretend to no such compe- which some of the operations of those manutition in its manufactures, at least if those factures are performed, exceeds what the humanufactures suit the soil, climate, and situa- man hand could, by those who had never seen tion, of the rich country. The silks of France them, be supposed capable of acquiring. are better and cheaper than those of England, Secondly, The advantage which is gained because the silk manufacture, at least under by saving the time commonly lost in passing the present high duties upon the importation from one sort of work to another, is much of raw silk, does not so well suit the climate greater than we should at first view be apt to of England as that of France. But the hard-imagine it. It is impossible to pass very ware and the coarse woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of France, and much cheaper, too, in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said to be scarce any manufactures of any kind, a few of those coarser household manufactures excepted, without which no country can well subsist.

This great increase in the quantity of work, which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and, lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workinen, necessarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment of his life, necessarily increases very much the dexterity of the workman. A common smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails, if, upon some particular occasion, he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be

quickly from one kind of work to another, that is carried on in a different place, and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must loose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is, no doubt, much less. It is, even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment to another. When he first begins the new work, he is seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say, does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering, and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather necessarily, acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life, renders him almost always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application, even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always reduce considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.

Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machin