The Wealth of Nations/Volume 1
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ADAM SMITH
THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
BY
ADAM SMITH, LL.D
PART ONE
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NEW YORK
P. F. COLLIER & SON
MCMII
16
SCIENCE
ADAM SMITH
Adam Smith, the greatest of political economists, was born in 1723 at Kirkcaldy in Fifeshire, Scotland. He was sent in 1737 to the University of Glasgow, and three years later to Balliol College, Oxford, where he remained seven years. In 1748 he gave lectures at Edinburgh on rhetoric and belles-lettres, and the intimate friendship which he here formed with David Hume must have powerfully influenced the formation of his opinions. In 1751 he was elected Professor of Logic in Glasgow, and in the following year was transferred to the Chair of Moral Philosophy in the same University, a position which he occupied for nearly twelve years. In 1759 he brought out his "Theory of Moral Sentiments." Subsequently he made a prolonged sojourn in France, where he lived in the society of Quesnay, Turgot, D'Alembert and Helvetius. There is reason to believe that he began at Toulouse the "Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," a work upon which he was employed for many years. This remarkable book appeared in 1776, and must still be regarded as the greatest existing essay in the field of political economy, the only attempt to replace it, that of John Stuart Mill, having, on the whole, miscarried, notwithstanding its partial usefulness. Buckle pronounced it "the most important book ever written."
CONTENTS
VOLUME ONE
- Preface
7 - Introductory Sketch of the History of Political Economy
9 - Introduction and Plan of the Work
39 BOOK I Of the Causes of Improvement in the Productive Powers of Labor, and of the Order according to which its Produce is naturally distributed among the different Ranks of the People
Chap. I. Of the Division of Labor43 II. Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labor55 III. That the Division of Labor is limited by the Extent of the Market60 IV. Of the Origin and Use of Money66 V. Of the real and nominal Price of Commodities, or of their Price in Labor, and their Price in Money75 VI. Of the component Parts of the Price of Commodities98 VII. Of the natural and market Price of Commodities107 VIII. Of the Wages of Labor120 IX. Of the Profits of Stock151 X. Of Wages and Profit in the different Employments of Labor and Stock165 - Part I. Inequalities arising from the Nature of the Employments themselves
166 - Part II. Inequalities occasioned by the Policy of Europe
192 XI. Of the Rent of Land226 - Part I. Of the Produce of Land which always affords Rent
229 - Part II. Of the Produce of Land which sometimes does, and sometimes does not, afford Rent
250 - Part III. Of the Variations in the Proportion between the respective Values of that Sort of Produce which always affords Rent, and of that which sometimes does and sometimes does not afford Rent
268 - Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of Silver during the Course of the last Four Centuries
271 - First Period
271 - Second Period
290 - Third Period
292 - Variations in the Proportion between the respective Values of Gold and Silver
315 - Grounds of the Suspicion that the Value of Silver still continues to decrease
323 - Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon the real Price of three different Sorts of rude Produce
324 - First Sort
324 - Second Sort
327 - Third Sort
340 - Conclusion of the Digression concerning the Variations in the Value of Silver
354 - Effects of the Progress of Improvement upon the real Price of Manufactures
361 - Conclusion of the Chapter
367 BOOK II Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock
- Introduction
381 Chap. I. Of the Division of Stock384 II. Of Money considered as a particular Branch of the general Stock of the Society, or of the Expense of maintaining the National Capital394
This work was published before January 1, 1929, and is in the public domain worldwide because the author died at least 100 years ago.
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