Adam Smith：The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter II, Paragraph 2027

It is otherwise with taxes upon what I call luxuries, even upon those of the poor. The rise in the price of the taxed commodities, will not necessarily occasion any rise in the wages of labour. A tax upon tobacco, for example, though a luxury of the poor, as well as of the rich, will not raise wages. Though it is taxed in England at three times, and in France at fifteen times its original price, those high duties seem to have no effect upon the wages of labour. The same thing maybe said of the taxes upon tea and sugar, which, in England and Holland, have become luxuries of the lowest ranks of people; and of those upon chocolate, which, in Spain, is said to have become so.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Locator：Book V, Chapter II, paragraph 2027 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Exact match

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