Introduction (Book I)

AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF
THE WEALTH OF NATIONS.

by Adam Smith

INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it
with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually
consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that
labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.

According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears a
greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume it,
the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries and
conveniencies for which it has occasion.

But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different
circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its
labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the
number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who are
not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory of
any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply
must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.

The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon
the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the savage
nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to work is more
or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide, as well as he
can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself, and such of his
family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or too infirm, to go
a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so miserably poor, that,
from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at least think themselves
reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly destroying, and sometimes of
abandoning their infants, their old people, and those afflicted with
lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to be devoured by wild beasts.
Among civilized and thriving nations, on the. contrary, though a great
number of people do not labour at all, many of whom consume the produce of
ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more labour than the greater part
of those who work ; yet the produce of the whole labour of the society is so
great, that all are often abundantly supplied ; and a workman, even of the
lowest and poorest order, if he is frugal and industrious, may enjoy a
greater share of the necessaries and conveniencies of life than it is
possible for any savage to acquire.

The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the
order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the
different