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