Adam Smith：The Wealth of Nations, Book V, Chapter III, Paragraph 2189

The present scarcity of gold and silver money in America, is not the effect of the poverty of that country, or of the inability of the people there to purchase those metals. In a country where the wages of labour are so much higher, and the price of provisions so much lower than in England, the greater part of the people must surely have wherewithal to purchase a greater quantity, if it were either necessary or convenient for them to do so. The scarcity of those metals, therefore, must be the effect of choice, and not of necessity.

Source： https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/3300
Locator：Book V, Chapter III, paragraph 2189 · Verified：2026-10-19 · Verification：Exact match

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