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AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS
by Adam Smith
1776
BOOK TWO
OF THE NATURE, ACCUMULATION, AND EMPLOYMENT OF STOCK
INTRODUCTION
IN that rude state of society in which there is no division
of labour, in which exchanges are seldom made, and in which every
man provides everything for himself, it is not necessary that any
stock should be accumulated or stored up beforehand in order to
carry on the business of the society. Every man endeavours to
supply by his own industry his own occasional wants as they
occur. When he is hungry, he goes to the forest to hunt; when his
coat is worn out, he clothes himself with the skin of the first
large animal he kills: and when his hut begins to go to ruin, he
repairs it, as well as he can, with the trees and the turf that
are nearest it.
But when the division of labour has once been thoroughly
introduced, the produce of a man's own labour can supply but a
very small part of his occasional wants. The far greater part of
them are supplied by the produce of other men's labour, which he
purchases with the produce, or, what is the same thing, with the
price of the produce of his own. But this purchase cannot be made
till such time as the produce of his own labour has not only been
completed, but sold. A stock of goods of different kinds,
therefore, must be stored up somewhere sufficient to maintain
him, and to supply him with the materials and tools of his work
till such time, at least, as both these events can be brought
about. A weaver cannot apply himself entirely to his peculiar
business, unless there is beforehand stored up somewhere, either
in his own possession or in that of some other person, a stock
sufficient to maintain him, and to supply him with the materials
and tools of his work, till he has not only completed, but sold
his web. This accumulation must, evidently, be previous to his
applying his industry for so long a time to such a peculiar
business.
As the accumulation of stock must, in the nature of things,
be previous to the division of labour, so labour can be more and
more subdivided in proportion only as stock is previously more
and more accumulated. The quantity of materials which the same
number of people can work up, increases in a great proportion as
labour comes to be more and more subdivided; and as the
operations of each workman are gradually reduced to a greater
degree of simplicity, a variety of new machines come to be
invented for facilitating and abridging those operations. As the
division of labour advances, therefore, in order to give constant
employment to an equal number of workmen, an equal stock of
provisions, and a greater stock of materials and tools than what
would have been necessary in a ruder state of things, must be
accumulated beforehand. But the number of workmen in every branch
of business generally increases with the division of labour in
that branch, or rather it is the increase of their number which
enables them to class and subdivide themselves in this manner.
As the accumulation of stock is previously necessary for
carrying on this great improvement in the productive powers of
labour, so that accumulation naturally leads to this improvement.
The person who employs his stock in maintaining labour,
necessarily wishes to employ it in such a manner as to produce as
great a quantity of work as possible. He endeavours, therefore,
both to make among his workmen the most proper distribution of
employment, and to furnish them with the best machines which he
can either invent or afford to purchase. His abilities in both
these respects are generally in proportion to the extent of his
stock, or to the number of people whom it can employ. The
quantity of industry, therefore, not only increases in every
country with the increase of the stock which employs it, but, in
consequence of that increase, the same quantity of industry
produces a much greater quantity of work.
Such are in general the effects of the increase of stock
upon industry and its productive powers.
In the following book I have endeavoured to explain the
nature of stock, the effects of its accumulation into capitals of
different kinds, and the effects of the different employments of
those capitals. This book is divided into five chapters. In the
first chapter, I have endeavoured to show what are the different
parts or branches into which the stock, either of an individual,
or of a great society, naturally divides itself. In the second, I
have endeavoured to explain the nature and operation of money
considered as a particular branch of the general stock of the
society. The stock which is accumulated into a capital, may
either be employed by the person to whom it belongs, or it may be
lent to some other person. In the third and fourth chapters, I
have endeavoured to examine the manner in which it operates in
both these situations. The fifth and last chapter treats of the
different effects which the different employments of capital
immediately produce upon the quantity both of national industry,
and of the annual produce of land and labour.
CHAPTER I
Of the Division of Stock
WHEN the stock which a man possesses is no more than
sufficient to maintain him for a few days or a few weeks, he
seldom thinks of deriving any revenue from it. He consumes it as
sparingly as he can, and endeavours by his labour to acquire
something which may supply its place before it be consumed
altogether. His revenue is, in this case, derived from his labour
only. This is the state of the greater part of the labouring poor
in all countries.
But when he possesses stock sufficient to maintain him for
months or years, he naturally endeavours to derive a revenue from
the greater part of it; reserving only so much for his immediate
consumption as may maintain him till this revenue begins to come
in. His whole stock, therefore, is distinguished into two parts.
That part which, he expects, is to afford him this revenue, is
called his capital. The other is that which supplies his
immediate consumption; and which consists either, first, in that
portion of his whole stock which was originally reserved for this
purpose; or, secondly, in his revenue, from whatever source
derived, as it gradually comes in; or, thirdly, in such things as
had been purchased by either of these in former years, and which
are not yet entirely consumed; such as a stock of clothes,
household furniture, and the like. In one, or other, or all of
these three articles, consists the stock which men commonly
reserve for their own immediate consumption.
There are two different ways in which a capital may be
employed so as to yield a revenue or profit to its employer.
First, it may be employed in raising, manufacturing, or
purchasing goods, and selling them again with a profit. The
capital employed in this manner yields no revenue or profit to
its employer, while it either remains in his possession, or
continues in the same shape. The goods of the merchant yield him
no revenue or profit till he sells them for money, and the money
yields him as little till it is again exchanged for goods. His
capital is continually going from him in one shape, and returning
to him in another, and it is only by means of such circulation,
or successive exchanges, that it can yield him any profit. Such
capitals, therefore, may very properly be called circulating
capitals.
Secondly, it may be employed in the improvement of land, in
the purchase of useful machines and instruments of trade, or in
suchlike things as yield a revenue or profit without changing
masters, or circulating any further. Such capitals, therefore,
may very properly be called fixed capitals.
Different occupations require very different proportions
between the fixed and circulating capitals employed in them.
The capital of a merchant, for example, is altogether a
circulating capital. He has occasion for no machines or
instruments of trade, unless his shop, or warehouse, be
considered as such.
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 some, and very great in others. A
master tailor requires no other instruments of trade but a parcel
of needles. Those of the master shoemaker are a little, though
but a very little, more expensive. Those of the weaver rise a
good deal above those of the shoemaker. The far greater part of
the capital of all such master artificers, however, is
circulated, either in the wages of their workmen, or in the price
of their materials, and repaid with a profit by the price of the
work.
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 slitt-mill, are instruments of trade which cannot
be erected without a very great expense. In coal-works and mines
of every kind, the machinery necessary both for drawing out the
water and for other purposes is frequently still more expensive.
That part of the capital of the farmer which is employed in
the instruments of agriculture is a fixed, that which is employed
in the wages and maintenance of his labouring servants, is a
circulating capital. He makes a profit of the one by keeping it
in his own possession, and of the other by parting with it. The
price or value of his labouring cattle is a fixed capital in the
same manner as that of the instruments of husbandry. Their
maintenance is a circulating capital in the same manner as that
of the labouring servants. The farmer makes his profit by keeping
the labouring cattle, and by parting with their maintenance. Both
the price and the maintenance of the cattle which are brought in
and fattened, not for labour, but for sale, are a circulating
capital. The farmer makes his profit by parting with them. A
flock of sheep or a herd of cattle that, in a breeding country,
is bought in, neither for labour, nor for sale, but in order to
make a profit by their wool, by their milk, and by their
increase, is a fixed capital. The profit is made by keeping them.
Their maintenance is a circulating capital. The profit is made by
parting with it; and it comes back with both its own profit and
the profit upon the whole price of the cattle, in the price of
the wool, the milk, and the increase. The whole value of the
seed, too, is properly a fixed capital. Though it goes backwards
and forwards between the ground and the granary, it never changes
masters, and therefore does not properly circulate. The farmer
makes his profit, not by its sale, but by its increase.
The general stock of any country or society is the same with
that of all its inhabitants or members, and therefore naturally
divides itself into the same three portions, each of which has a
distinct function or office.
The first is that portion which is reserved for immediate
consumption, and of which the characteristic is, that it affords
no revenue or profit. It consists in the stock of food, clothes,
household furniture, etc., which have been purchased by their
proper consumers, but which are not yet entirely consumed. The
whole stock of mere dwelling-houses too, subsisting at any one
time in the country, make a part of this first portion. The stock
that is laid out in a house, if it is to be the dwellinghouse of
the proprietor, ceases from that moment to serve in the function
of a capital, or to afford any revenue to its owner. A
dwellinghouse, as such, contributes nothing to the revenue of its
inhabitant; and though it is, no doubt, extremely useful to him,
it is as his clothes and household furniture are useful to him,
which, however, makes a part of his expense, and not of his
revenue. If it is to be let to a tenant for rent, as the house
itself can produce nothing, the tenant must always pay the rent
out of some other revenue which he derives either from labour, or
stock, or land. Though a house, therefore, may yield a revenue to
its proprietor, and thereby serve in the function of a capital to
him, it cannot yield any to the public, nor serve in the function
of a capital to it, and the revenue of the whole body of the
people can never be in the smallest degree increased by it.
Clothes, and household furniture, in the same manner, sometimes
yield a revenue, and thereby serve in the function of a capital
to particular persons. In countries where masquerades are common,
it is a trade to let out masquerade dresses for a night.
Upholsterers frequently let furniture by the month or by the
year. Undertakers let the furniture of funerals by the day and by
the week. Many people let furnished houses, and get a rent, not
only for the use of the house, but for that of the furniture. The
revenue, however, which is derived from such things must always
be ultimately drawn from some other source of revenue. Of all
parts of the stock, either of an individual, or of a society,
reserved for immediate consumption, what is laid out in houses is
most slowly consumed. A stock of clothes may last several years:
a stock of furniture half a century or a century: but a stock of
houses, well built and properly taken care of, may last many
centuries. Though the period of their total consumption, however,
is more distant, they are still as really a stock reserved for
immediate consumption as either clothes or household furniture.
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, that it affords a revenue or profit
without circulating or changing masters. It consists chiefly of
the four following articles:
First, of all useful machines and instruments of trade which
facilitate and abridge labour:
Secondly, of all those profitable buildings which are the
