亚当·斯密

A paper currency which falls below the value of gold and silver coin, does not thereby sink the value of those metals, or occasion equal quantities…

That part of the annual produce of the land and labour of any country which replaces a capital, never is immediately employed to maintain any but…

Whatever part of his stock a man employs as a capital, he always expects it to be replaced to him with a profit. He employs it, therefore, in…

The proportion, therefore, between the productive and unproductive hands, depends very much in every country upon the proportion between that part of…

In the opulent countries of Europe, great capitals are at present employed in trade and manufactures. In the ancient state, the little trade that was…

That part of the annual produce, therefore, which, as soon as it comes either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, is…

The proportion between capital and revenue, therefore, seems everywhere to regulate the proportion between industry and idleness. Wherever capital…

Whatever a person saves from his revenue he adds to his capital, and either employs it himself in maintaining an additional number of productive…

This expense, it may be said, indeed, not being in foreign goods, and not occasioning any exportation of gold and silver, the same quantity of…

The effects of misconduct are often the same as those of prodigality. Every injudicious and unsuccessful project in agriculture, mines, fisheries,…

The only people to whom stock is commonly lent, without their being expected to make any very profitable use of it, are country gentlemen, who borrow…

Almost all loans at interest are made in money, either of paper, or of gold and silver; but what the borrower really wants, and what the lender…

A capital lent at interest may, in this manner, be considered as an assignment, from the lender to the borrower, of a certain considerable portion of…

In proportion as that share of the annual produce which, as soon as it comes either from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers,…

Mr Locke, Mr Lawe, and Mr Montesquieu, as well as many other writers, seem to have imagined that the increase of the quantity of gold and silver,…

No law can reduce the common rate of interest below the lowest ordinary market rate at the time when that law is made. Notwithstanding the edict of…

Though all capitals are destined for the maintenance of productive labour only, yet the quantity of that labour which equal capitals are capable of…

Unless a capital was employed in manufacturing that part of the rude produce which requires a good deal of preparation before it can be fit for use…

The persons whose capitals are employed in any of those four ways, are themselves productive labourers. Their labour, when properly directed, fixes…

The capital of the retailer replaces, together with its profits, that of the merchant of whom he purchases goods, and thereby enables him to continue…

The capital of the wholesale merchant replaces, together with their profits, the capitals of the farmers and manufacturers of whom he purchases the…

The capitals employed in the agriculture and in the retail trade of any society, must always reside within that society. Their employment is confined…

When the capital of any country is not sufficient for all those three purposes, in proportion as a greater share of it is employed in agriculture,…

It is thus that the same capital will in any country put into motion a greater or smaller quantity of productive labour, and add a greater or smaller…

All wholesale trade, all buying in order to sell again by wholesale, maybe reduced to three different sorts: the home trade, the foreign trade of…

The capital employed in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, when this purchase is made with the produce of domestic industry, replaces,…

But the returns of the foreign trade of consumption are very seldom so quick as those of the home trade. The returns of the home trade generally come…

The extent of the home trade, and of the capital which can be employed in it, is necessarily limited by the value of the surplus produce of all those…

In countries, on the contrary, where there is either no uncultivated land, or none that can be had upon easy terms, every artificer who has…

The public services to which the yeomanry were bound, were not less arbitrary than the private ones. To make and maintain the high roads, a servitude…

At first, the farm of the town was probably let to the burghers, in the same manner as it had been to other farmers, for a term of years only. In…

First, by affording a great and ready market for the rude produce of the country, they gave encouragement to its cultivation and further improvement.…

When the great proprietors of land spend their rents in maintaining their tenants and retainers, each of them maintains entirely all his own…

It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove, that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases,…

The two principles being established, however, that wealth consisted in gold and silver, and that those metals could be brought into a country…

The two sorts of restraints upon importation above mentioned, together with these four encouragements to exportation, constitute the six principal…

That this monopoly of the home market frequently gives great encouragement to that particular species of industry which enjoys it, and frequently…

First, every individual endeavours to employ his capital as near home as he can, and consequently as much as he can in the support of domestic…

The produce of industry is what it adds to the subject or materials upon which it is employed. In proportion as the value of this produce is great or…

What is the species of domestic industry which his capital can employ, and of which the produce is likely to be of the greatest value, every…

Though, for want of such regulations, the society should never acquire the proposed manufacture, it would not upon that account necessarily be the…

First, It might always be known with great exactness, how far the price of such a commodity could be enhanced by such a tax; but how far the…

Thirdly, and lastly, There is no certain criterion by which we can determine on which side what is called the balance between any two countries lies,…

Before 1609, the great quantity of clipt and worn foreign coin which the extensive trade of Amsterdam brought from all parts of Europe, reduced the…

Deposits of bullion are most commonly made when the price is somewhat lower than ordinary, and they are taken out again when it happens to rise. In…

The proportions between the bank price, the mint price, and the market price of gold bullion, are nearly the same. A person can generally sell his…

The person who, by making a deposit of bullion, obtains both a bank credit and a receipt, pays his bills of exchange as they become due, with his…

No demand can be made upon the bank, but by means of a recipice or receipt. The smaller mass of bank money, for which the receipts are expired, is…

What may be the amount of the treasure in the bank, is a question which has long employed the speculations of the curious. Nothing but conjecture can…

This balance of produce and consumption is entirely different from what is called the balance of trade. It might take place in a nation which had…

The revenue of the customs, instead of suffering, profits from such drawbacks, by that part of the duty which is retained. If the whole duties had…

Bounties upon exportation are, in Great Britain, frequently petitioned for, and sometimes granted, to the produce of particular branches of…

The trades, it is to be observed, which are carried on by means of bounties, are the only ones which can be carried on between two nations for any…

In years of plenty, it has already been observed, the bounty, by occasioning an extraordinary exportation, necessarily keeps up the price of corn…

That in the actual state of tillage the bounty must necessarily have this tendency, will not, I apprehend, be disputed by any reasonable person.…

The real effect of the bounty is not so much to raise the real value of corn, as to degrade the real value of silver; or to make an equal quantity of…

It regulates the money price of labour, which must always be such as to enable the labourer to purchase a quantity of corn sufficient to maintain him…

It regulates the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, which, in every period of improvement, must bear a certain…

By regulating the money price of all the other parts of the rude produce of land, it regulates that of the materials of almost all manufactures; by…

That degradation in the value of silver, which is the effect of the fertility of the mines, and which operates equally, or very nearly equally,…