《国富论英.doc》由会员分享，可在线阅读，更多相关《国富论英.doc（2211页珍藏版）》请在三一文库上搜索。
1、An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsAdam SmithIntroduction and Plan of the WorkTHE annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all thenecessaries and conveniences of life which it annually consumes, and which consist alwayseither in the immed
2、iate produce of that labour, or in what is purchased with that produce fromother nations.According therefore as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a greater or smallerproportion to the number of those who are to consume it, the nation will be better or worsesupplied with all the neces
3、saries and conveniences 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 emplo ye
4、d in useful labour, and that ofthose who are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of anyparticular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must, in that particularsituation, depend upon those two circumstances.The abundance or scantiness of this sup
5、ply, too, seems to depend more upon the former ofthose two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage nations of hunters andfishers, every individual who is able to work, is more or less employed in useful labour, andendeavours to provide, as well as he can, the necessaries and convenience
6、s of life, for himself,or such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm to go a huntingand fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor that, from mere want, they arefrequently reduced, or, at least, think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes ofdir
7、ectly destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people, and thoseafflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.Among civilised and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do notlabour at all, many of whom
8、consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred timesmore labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the whole labour ofthe society is so great that all are often abundantly supplied, and a workman, even of thelowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industriou
9、s, may enjoy a greater share of thenecessaries and conveniences of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.The causes of this improvement, in the productive powers of labour, and the order,according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the different ranks andconditions of m
10、en 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 isapplied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply must depend, duringthe continuance of that state, upon the proportion b
11、etween the number of those who areannually employed in useful labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The numberof useful and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in proportion to thequantity of capital stock which is employed in setting them to work, and to the p
12、articular wayin which it is so employed. The second book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, ofthe manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different quantities of labourwhich it puts into motion, according to the different ways in which it is employed.Nations tolerably
13、 well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in the application oflabour, have followed very different plans in the general conduct or direction of it; those planshave not all been equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of somenations has given extraordinary encourage
14、ment to the industry of the country; that of others tothe industry of towns. Scarce any nation has dealt equally and impartially with every sort ofindustry. Since the downfall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been morefavourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns
15、, than to agriculture, theindustry of the country. The circumstances which seem to have introduced and establishedthis policy are explained in the third book.Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the private interests andprejudices of particular orders of men, without any r
16、egard to, or foresight of, theirconsequences upon the general welfare of the society; yet they have given occasion to verydifferent theories of political economy; of which some magnify the importance of thatindustry which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the country. Tho
17、setheories have had a considerable influence, not only upon the opinions of men of learning, butupon the public conduct of princes and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the fourthbook, to explain, as fully and distinctly as I can, those different theories, and the principaleffects which they
18、have produced in different ages and nations.To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the people, or what hasbeen the nature of those funds which, in different ages and nations, have supplied their annualconsumption, is the object of these four first books. The fifth and last
19、 book treats of therevenue of the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to show, first,what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth; which of those expensesought to be defrayed by the general contribution of the whole society; and which of them bythat of so
20、me particular part only, or of some particular members of it: secondly, what are thedifferent methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute towards defrayingthe expenses incumbent on the whole society, and what are the principal advantages andinconveniences of each of those methods: a
21、nd, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons andcauses which have induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of thisrevenue, or to contract debts, and what have been the effects of those debts upon the realwealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of the society.BOOK ONEOf t
22、he Causes of Improvement in the Productive Powers of Labour, and of the Orderaccording to Which its Produce is Naturally Distributed among the Different Ranks ofthe People.CHAPTER IOf the Division of LabourTHE greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of theskill,
23、 dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to havebeen the effects of the division of labour.The effects of the division of labour, in the general business of society, will be more easilyunderstood by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufa
24、ctures. It iscommonly supposed to be carried furthest in some very trifling ones; not perhaps that it reallyis carried further in them than in others of more importance: but in those trifling manufactureswhich are destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the wholenumber of
25、 workmen must necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branchof the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under theview of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined tosupply the great wants of the great body o
26、f the people, every different branch of the workemploys so great a number of workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the sameworkhouse. 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
27、into a much greaternumber of parts than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious, andhas accordingly been much less observed.To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which thedivision of labour has been very often taken notice of, the
28、 trade of the pin-maker; a workmannot educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), noracquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the samedivision of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his
29、 utmostindustry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in whichthis business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is dividedinto a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One mandraws out the w
30、ire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at thetop for receiving, the head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put iton is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put theminto the paper;
31、and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided intoabout eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distincthands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I haveseen a small manufactory of this kind wher
32、e ten men only were employed, and where some ofthem consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But though they were verypoor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could,when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins
33、in a day. Thereare in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore,could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person,therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as makingfour thousand eight
34、hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately andindependently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, theycertainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is,certainly, not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps no
35、t the four thousand eight hundredth partof what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division andcombination of their different operations.In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to whatthey are in this very trifling one;
36、 though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so muchsubdivided, 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 theproductive powers of labour. The separation of different
37、trades and employments from oneanother seems to have taken place in consequence of this advantage. This separation, too, isgenerally called furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry andimprovement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society being generally th
38、at ofseveral in an improved one. In every improved society, the farmer is generally nothing but afarmer; the manufacturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The labour, too, which is necessary toproduce any one complete manufacture is almost always divided among a great number ofhands. How many different
39、trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollenmanufactures from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of thelinen, or to the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed, does notadmit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so comp
40、lete a separation of one business fromanother, as manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely the business of the grazierfrom that of the corn- farmer as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that ofthe smith. The spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver;
41、 but the ploughman,the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the same. Theoccasions for those different sorts of labour returning with the different seasons of the year, itis impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. Thisimpossibility
42、of making so complete and entire a separation of all the different branches oflabour employed in agriculture is perhaps the reason why the improvement of the productivepowers of labour in this art does not always keep pace with their improvement inmanufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, gene
43、rally excel all their neighbours inagriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more distinguished by theirsuperiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, andhaving more labour and expense bestowed upon them, produce more in proportion to
44、theextent and natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority of produce is seldom much morethan in proportion to the superiority of labour and expense. In agriculture, the labour of therich country is not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is neverso much more
45、 productive as it commonly is in manufactures. The corn of the rich country,therefore, will not always, in the same degree of goodness, come cheaper to market than thatof the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France,notwithstanding the superior opulence
46、 and improvement of the latter country. The corn ofFrance is, in the corn provinces, fully as good, and in most years nearly about the same pricewith the corn of England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior toEngland. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultiva
47、ted than those of France, andthe corn- lands of France are said to be much better cultivated than those of Poland. Butthough the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of its cultivation, can, in somemeasure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of its corn, it can pretend to no suchc
48、ompetition in its manufactures; at least if those manufactures suit the soil, climate, andsituation of the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of England,because the silk manufacture, at least under the present high duties upon the importation ofraw silk, does not so well suit the climate of England as that of France. But the hardware andthe coarse woollens of England are beyond all comparison superior to those of France, andmuch cheaper too in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said to be scarce anymanuf