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The difference between the money price of labour in China and in Europe, is still greater than that between the money price of subsistence; because…

Whatever, therefore, may have been the increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which, during the period between the middle of the fourteenth…

From about 1570 to about 1640, during a period of about seventy years, the variation in the proportion between the value of silver and that of corn…

The discovery of the abundant mines of America seems to have been the sole cause of this diminution in the value of silver, in proportion to that…

From 1595 to 1620, both inclusive, the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best wheat, at Windsor market, appears, from the…

From 1621 to 1636, both inclusive, the average price of the same measure of the best wheat, at the same market, appears, from the same accounts, to…

From 1637 to 1700, both inclusive, being the sixty-four last years of the last century the average price of the quarter of nine bushels of the best…

The tax of the king of Spain was reduced to a fifth of the registered silver in 1504 {Solorzano, vol, ii.}, one-and-forty years before 1545, the date…

The price of silver in the European market might, perhaps, have fallen still lower, and it might have become necessary either to reduce the tax…

The quantity of brass and iron annually brought from the mine to the market, is out of all proportion greater than that of gold and silver. We do not…

The great quantities of silver carried annually from Europe to India, have, in some of the English settlements, gradually reduced the value of that…

But the ordinary proportion between the respective values of two commodities is not necessarily the same as that between the quantities of them which…

The increase of the wealth of Europe, and the popular notion, that as the quantity of the precious metals naturally increases with the increase of…

That that increase in the quantity of the precious metals, which arises in any country from the increase of wealth, has no tendency to diminish their…

If you except corn, and such other vegetables as are raised altogether by human industry, that all other sorts of rude produce, cattle, poultry, game…

Though it is late, therefore, in the progress of improvement, before cattle can bring such a price as to render it profitable to cultivate land for…

Between that period in the progress of improvement, which brings to its height the price of so necessary an article as cattle, and that which…

This rise, too, in the nominal or money price of all those different sorts of rude produce, has been the effect, not of any degradation in the…

Third Sort.—The third and last sort of rude produce, of which the price naturally rises in the progress of improvement, is that in which the efficacy…

The same causes which, in the progress of improvement, gradually raise the price of butcher’s meat, should have the same effect, it may be thought,…

The market for butcher’s meat is almost everywhere confined to the country which produces it. Ireland, and some part of British America, indeed,…

The wool of Scotland fell very considerably in its price in consequence of the union with England, by which it was excluded from the great market…

Though the success of a particular day’s fishing may be a very uncertain matter, yet the local situation of the country being supposed, the general…

As the low value of gold and silver, therefore, is no proof of the wealth and flourishing state of the country where it takes place; so neither is…

As to the price of corn itself, it has, during the sixty-four first years of the present century, and before the late extraordinary course of bad…

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…