Selections from The Wealth of Nations (SMITH 1776)

 Adam Smith, Selections from The Wealth of Nations, ed. G. J. Stiegler, Appleton Century Crofts, New York, 1957 (1776). 118 p.

 

Book I Of the causes of improvement in the productive powers labor, and the order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the differents ranks of the people

Chapter III That the division of labor is limited by the extent of the market 
10 (...) The nations that, accedingn to the best authenticated history, appear to have been first civilised were those that dwelt round to the coast of the Mediterranean Sea.
18 (...) There are in Africa none of those great inlets such as Baltic și Adriatic seas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine seas in both Europe and Asia, and the gulfs of Arabia, Persia, India, Bengal, and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into the interior parts of that great continent: (...). (...) The navigation of the Danube is very little use to the different states of Bavaria, Austria, and Hungary, in comparison of what it would be if any of them possesed the whole of its course till it fals into the Black Sea.   

Chapter IV Of the origin and use of money 
20 (...) The armor of Diomede, says Homer, cost only nine oxen; but that of Glaucon cost an hundred oxen. 
21 (...) Iron was common of commerce among the ancient Spartans; copper among the ancient Romans and gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations.

 

Chapter X Of wages and profit in the different employements of labor and stock 
Part I Inequalities arising from the nature of the employements themselves 
49 (...) Fishermen have been so [very poor] since time of Theocritus.

 

Book IV Of systems o political economy

Chapter I Of the principle of the commercial or mercantile system

69 (...) Those metals [gold and silver], when the Spartans had got wherewithal to purchase them, broke through all the bariers which the laws of Lycurgus opposed to their entrance into Lacedemon. 
75 (...) The last French war 1756-1763 cost Great Britain upwards of ninety millions, including not only the seventy-five millions of new debt that was contracted, but the additional two shllings in the pound land tax, and what was annually borrowed of the sinking fund. More than two-thirds of this espense were laid out in distant countries: in Germany, Portugal, America, in the ports of Mediterranean, in the East and West Indies. 

80 (...) What Dercyllidas said of the court of Persia may be applied of the several European princes, that he saw there much splendor but little strength, and many servants but few soldiers.

  

Book V Of the revenue of the sovereign or commonwealth

Chapter I of the exercise of the sovereign or commonwealth

Part I Of the expense of defense

91 (...) The judgement of Thucidydes, the both Europe and Asia coul not resist the Scythians united, has been verified by the experiences of all ages.

92 (...) He is not unwilling, therefore, to serve without pay during a short campaign, and it frequently cost the sovereign or commonwealth as little to maintains him in the field as to prepare him for it. The citizens of all different states of ancient Greece seem to served in this manner till after the second Persian war; and the people of Peloponesus till after the Peloponesian war. The Peloponesians, Thucidyde observes, generally left the filed in the summer, and returned home to reap the harvest. The Roman people under their kings, and during the first ages of the republic, served in the same manner. It not was till the siege of Veii, that they who stayed at home began to contribute something toward maintaining those who went to war.

93 In the European monarchies, which were founded upon the ruins of the Roman empire, both before and fosr some after the establishment of what is proprerly called the feudal law, the great lords, with all their immediate dependents, used to serve the crown at their own expense.  

94 (...) After the second Persian war, accordingly, the armies of Athens seem to have been generally conposed of mercenary troops, consisting, indeed, partly of citizens, but partly too of foreigners, and all of them equally hired and paid at the expense of the state. From the time of the siege of Veii, the armies of Rome received pay for their service during the time which they remained in the field. (...)  
(...) In the little agrarian states of the ancient Greece, a fourth or a fifth part of the whole body of the people considered themeselves as soldiers, and would sometimes, it is said, take the field. (...) 
(...) In all the different republics of ancient Greece, to learn his military exercices was a necessary part of education imposed by the state upon every free citizen. In every city there seems to have been a public field, in wich, under the protection of a public magistrate, the young people were taught their different exercices by different masters.

95 In this very simple institution consisted the whole expense which any Grecian state seems ever to have been at, in preparing its citizens for war. In ancient Rome the exercises of the Camp Martius answered the same purpose with those of the Gymnasium in ancient Greece. (...) 
In the republic of ancient Greece and Rome, during the whole period of their existence, and under the feudal govermements for a considerable time after their establishment, the trade of a soldier was not a separate, distinct trade which constituted the sole or principal occupation of a particular class of citizens. Every subject of the state, whatever might be the ordinary trade or occupation by which he gained his livelhood, considered himself, upon all ordinary occasions, as fit likewise to exercise the trade of a soldier, and upon many extraordinary occasions as bound to exercise it.

 

Part II Of the expense of justice
104 Int he Tartar governements of Asia, in the governements of Europe which were founded by the German and Scythians nations who overtuned the Roman empire, the administration of justice was a considerable source of revenue, both to sovereign and to all the lesser chiefs or lords who exercised under him any particular jurisdiction, either ever some particular tribe or clan, or over some particular territory or district.    
105 (...) In all barbarians governements, accordingly, in all those ancient governements of Europe in particular, which were founded ipon the ruins of the Roman empire, the administration of justice appears for a long tine to have been extremely corrupt, far from being quite equal and impartial even under the best monarchs, and altogether profigate under the worst.

  

Part III Of the expense of public work and public institutions

Article II Of the expense of the institutions for the education of youth 
114 (...) In the schools the yought are taught, or at least may be taught, Greek and Latin that is, everything which the masters pretend to teach, or which, it is expected, they should teach.