Adam Smith

The same quantity of silver, it may perhaps be said, will, in the present times, even according to the account which has been here given, purchase…

The same order of people are, by the same law, prohibited from wearing hose, of which the price should exceed fourteen-pence the pair, equal to about…

The consideration of these circumstances may, perhaps, in some measure, explain to us why the real price both of the coarse and of the fine…

That rise in the real price of those parts of the rude produce of land, which is first the effect of the extended improvement and cultivation, and…

That produce, after the rise in its real price, requires no more labour to collect it than before. A smaller proportion of it will, therefore, be…

All those improvements in the productive powers of labour, which tend directly to reduce the rent price of manufactures, tend indirectly to raise the…

Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the…

The contrary circumstances, the neglect of cultivation and improvement, the fall in the real price of any part of the rude produce of land, the…

The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, or, what comes to the same thing, the whole price of that annual produce, naturally…

First, it may be employed in raising, manufacturing, or purchasing goods, and selling them again with a profit. The capital employed in this manner…

Secondly, it may be employed in the improvement of land, in the purchase of useful machines and instruments of trade, or in such like things as yield…

Some part of the capital of every master artificer or manufacturer must be fixed in the instruments of his trade. This part, however, is very small…

In other works a much greater fixed capital is required. In a great iron-work, for example, the furnace for melting the ore, the forge, the slit-mill…

The second of the three portions into which the general stock of the society divides itself, is the fixed capital; of which the characteristic is,…

Secondly, of all those profitable buildings which are the means of procuring a revenue, not only to the proprietor who lets them for a rent, but to…

Thirdly, of the improvements of land, of what has been profitably laid out in clearing, draining, inclosing, manuring, and reducing it into the…

Fourthly, of the acquired and useful abilities of all the inhabitants and members of the society. The acquisition of such talents, by the maintenance…

The third and last of the three portions into which the general stock of the society naturally divides itself, is the circulating capital, of which…

Fourthly, and lastly, of the work which is made up and completed, but which is still in the hands of the merchant and manufacturer, and not yet…

Of these four parts, three—provisions, materials, and finished work, are either annually or in a longer or shorter period, regularly withdrawn from…

Every fixed capital is both originally derived from, and requires to be continually supported by, a circulating capital. All useful machines and…

No fixed capital can yield any revenue but by means of a circulating capital. The most useful machines and instruments of trade will produce nothing,…

To maintain and augment the stock which may be reserved for immediate consumption, is the sole end and purpose both of the fixed and circulating…

In all countries where there is a tolerable security, every man of common understanding will endeavour to employ whatever stock he can command, in…

It has been shown in the First Book, that the price of the greater part of commodities resolves itself into three parts, of which one pays the…

Since this is the case, it has been observed, with regard to every particular commodity, taken separately, it must be so with regard to all the…

But though the whole value of the annual produce of the land and labour of every country, is thus divided among, and constitutes a revenue to, its…

The gross rent of a private estate comprehends whatever is paid by the farmer; the neat rent, what remains free to the landlord, after deducting…

The gross revenue of all the inhabitants of a great country comprehends the whole annual produce of their land and labour; the neat revenue, what…

The whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital must evidently be excluded from the neat revenue of the society. Neither the materials necessary…

The expense of maintaining the fixed capital in a great country, may very properly be compared to that of repairs in a private estate. The expense of…

But though the whole expense of maintaining the fixed capital is thus necessarily excluded from the neat revenue of the society, it is not the same…

The circulating capital of a society is in this respect different from that of an individual. That of an individual is totally excluded from making…

Secondly, as the machines and instruments of trade, etc. which compose the fixed capital either of an individual or of a society, make no part either…

When, by any particular sum of money, we mean not only to express the amount of the metal pieces of which it is composed, but to include in its…

If the pension of such a person was paid to him, not in gold, but in a weekly bill for a guinea, his revenue surely would not so properly consist…

Though the weekly or yearly revenue of all the different inhabitants of any country, in the same manner, may be, and in reality frequently is, paid…

Money, therefore, the great wheel of circulation, the great instrument of commerce, like all other instruments of trade, though it makes a part,…

Thirdly, and lastly, the machines and instruments of trade, etc. which compose the fixed capital, bear this further resemblance to that part of the…

It is sufficiently obvious, and it has partly, too, been explained already, in what manner every saving in the expense of supporting the fixed…

If they employ it in purchasing goods in one foreign country, in order to supply the consumption of another, or in what is called the carrying trade,…

If they employ it in purchasing foreign goods for home consumption, they may either, first, purchase such goods as are likely to be consumed by…

So far as it is employed in the second way, it promotes industry; and though it increases the consumption of the society, it provides a permanent…

When we compute the quantity of industry which the circulating capital of any society can employ, we must always have regard to those parts of it…

The quantity of industry which any capital can employ, must evidently be equal to the number of workmen whom it can supply with materials, tools, and…

When paper is substituted in the room of gold and silver money, the quantity of the materials, tools, and maintenance, which the whole circulating…

It is chiefly by discounting bills of exchange, that is, by advancing money upon them before they are due, that the greater part of banks and bankers…

Over and above the expenses which are common to every branch of trade, such as the expense of house-rent, the wages of servants, clerks, accountants,…

Had every particular banking company always understood and attended to its own particular interest, the circulation never could have been overstocked…

What a bank can with propriety advance to a merchant or undertaker of any kind, is not either the whole capital with which he trades, or even any…

When a bank discounts to a merchant a real bill of exchange, drawn by a real creditor upon a real debtor, and which, as soon as it becomes due, is…

In a country where the ordinary profits of stock, in the greater part of mercantile projects, are supposed to run between six and ten per cent. it…

In 1697, the bank was allowed to enlarge its capital stock, by an ingraftment of £1,001,171:10s. Its whole capital stock, therefore, amounted at this…

In pursuance of the 7th Anne, c. 7, the bank advanced and paid into the exchequer the sum of £400,000; making in all the sum of £1,600,000, which…

By a call of fifteen per cent. in 1709, there was paid in, and made stock, £ 656,204:1:9d.; and by another of ten per cent. in 1710, £501,448:12:11d.…

The dividend of the bank has varied according to the variations in the rate of the interest which it has, at different times, received for the…

It were better, perhaps, that no bank notes were issued in any part of the kingdom for a smaller sum than £5. Paper money would then, probably,…

A paper money, consisting in bank notes, issued by people of undoubted credit, payable upon demand, without any condition, and, in fact, always…

It would be otherwise, indeed, with a paper money, consisting in promissory notes, of which the immediate payment depended, in any respect, either…

In the paper currencies of Yorkshire, the payment of so small a sum as 6d. sometimes depended upon the condition, that the holder of the note…