Book II: Chapter 3

CHAPTER III.

OF THE ACCUMULATION OF CAPITAL, OR OF
PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LABOUR.

There is one sort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon
which it is bestowed ; there is another which has no such effect. The former
as it produces a value, may be called productive, the latter, unproductive
labour. { Some French authors of great learning and ingenuity have used
those words in a different sense. In the last chapter of the fourth book, I
shall endeavour to shew that their sense is an improper one.} Thus the labour
of a manufacturer adds generally to the value of the materials which he
works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his master's profit. The
labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.
Though the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his master, he in
reality costs him no expense, the value of those wages being generally
restored, together with a profit, in the improved value of the subject upon
which his labour is bestowed. But the maintenance of a menial servant never
is restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers ;
he grows poor by maintaining a multitude or menial servants. The labour of
the latter, however, has its value, and deserves its reward as well as that
of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and realizes itself
in some particular subject or vendible commodity, which lasts for some time
at least after that labour is past. It is, as it were, a certain quantity of
labour stocked and stored up, to be employed, if necessary, upon some other
occasion. That subject, or, what is the same thing, the price of that
subject, can afterwards, if necessary, put into motion a quantity of labour
equal to that which had originally produced it. The labour of the menial
servant, on the contrary, does not fix or realize itself in any particular
subject or vendible commodity. His services generally perish in the very
instant of their performance, and seldom leave any trace of value behind
them, for which an equal quantity of service could afterwards be procured.

The labour of some of the most respectable orders in the society is, like
that of menial servants, unproductive of any value, and does not fix or
realize itself in any permanent subject, or vendible commodity, which
endures after that labour is past, and for which an equal quantity of labour
could afterwards be procured. The sovereign, for example, with all the
officers both of justice and war who serve under him, the whole army and
navy, are unproductive labourers. They are the servants of the public, and
are maintained by a part of the annual produce of the industry of other
people. Their service, how honourable, how useful, or how necessary