An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations (Classic Reprint) - Tapa blanda

Excerpt from An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of Wealth of Nations

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally sup plies 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.

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Buckle said of The Wealth of Nations that it is the most valuable contribution ever made by a single individual to determine the true principles of government. MC ulloch thought The Wealth of Nations had exercised a power and beneficent influence on the public opinion and legislation of the civilised world, which has never been attained by any other work. Lord Mahon stated that The Wealth of Nations not only founded, but also almost completed political economy ;and Jean Baptiste Say said, Read A dam Smith as he deserves to be read and you will perceive that before him no political economy existed. On the other hand, John Ruskin is responsible for the allusion to A dam Smith as the half-bred and half-witted Scotchman who taught the deliberate blasphemy: Thou shalt hate the Lord, thy God, damn his laws and covet his neighbours goods. That these various statements involve gross exaggerations needs scarcely to be pointed out. But it remains true none the less that The Wealth of Nations has become one of the classics of literature in general, as well as of the literature of economics in particular. Before proceeding to consider the reasons for this it may be wise to say a word about the author himself. A dam Smith was born in 1723 in the small town of Kirkcaldy, Scotland, as the son of a minor government official. At the age of three he was stolen by gypsies, but was fortunately before long restored to his parents. At the age of fourteen he was sent to college at Glasgow, and when seventeen entered Balliol College, Oxford, as an exhibitioner. He remained at the university six years, devoting himself to philosophy and literature. After his graduation he dwelt for a period at home in the prosecution of his studies, and in 1748 was appointed to a lectureship on literature at Edinburgh, a position which he secured through the influence of his friend, Lord Karnes. In
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