Adam Smith Quotes About Labour

Quotes about: Labour

• No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable. It is but equity, besides, that they who feed, clothe and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labour as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed and lodged.

  Adam Smith

  Should Have, People, Body

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.33

• Labour was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things. It was not by gold or by silver, but by labour, that all wealth of the world was originally purchased.

  Adam Smith

  Money, Labour Movement, Labor Day

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.13

• It is not the actual greatness of national wealth, but its continual increase, which occasions a rise in the wages of labour. It is not, accordingly, in the richest countries, but in the most thriving, or in those which are growing rich the fastest, that the wages of labour are highest. England is certainly, in the present times, a much richer country than any part of North America. The wages of labour, however, are much higher in North America than in any part of England.

  Adam Smith

  Country, Greatness, America

  Adam Smith, Laurence Dickey (1993). “Wealth of Nations (Abridged)”, p.35, Hackett Publishing

• This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Numbers, People

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.16, VM eBooks

• The division of labour was limited by the extent of the market

  Adam Smith

  Division, Economics, Labour

• Labor was the first price, the original purchase - money that was paid for all things.

  Adam Smith

  Labour Movement, Labor Day, Firsts

  1776 An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, bk.1, ch.5.

• Among civilized and thriving nations, on the contrary, though a great number of people do no labor 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.

  Adam Smith

  Order, Numbers, People

  "The Wealth of Nations" by Adam Smith, (Introduction and Plan of the Work, p. 2), 1776.

• The greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of the division of labour.

  Adam Smith

  Division Of Labor, Skills, Dexterity

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.2

• The liberal reward of labour, therefore, as it is the affect of increasing wealth, so it is the cause of increasing population. To complain of it, is to lament over the necessary effect and cause of the greatest public prosperity.

  Adam Smith

  Population, Complaining, Rewards

  Adam Smith (2010). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.85, Cosimo, Inc.

• 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.

  Adam Smith

  Origin Of Life, Produce, Wealth Of Nations

  Adam Smith (1827). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.1

• Thus the labour of a manufacture adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own maintenance, and of his masters profits. The labour of a menial servant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing.

  Adam Smith

  Add, Maintenance, Masters

  Adam Smith (2007). “The Wealth of Nations: An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: With an introduction by Jonathan B. Wight, University of Richmond”, p.311, Harriman House Limited

• The value of any commodity, therefore, to the person who possesses it, and who means not to use or consume it himself, but to exchange it for other commodities, is equal to the quantity of labour which it enables him to purchase or command. Labour, therefore, is the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities. The real price of everything, what everything really costs to the man who wants to acquire it, is the toil and trouble of acquiring it.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Mean, Men

  Adam, Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations”, p.24, Aegitas

• The annual produce of the land and labour of any nation can be increased in its value by no other means, but by increasing either the number of its productive labourers, or the productive powers of those labourers who had before been employed.

  Adam Smith

  Mean, Land, Numbers

  Adam Smith (1864). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.141

• In general, if any branch of trade, or any division of labour, be advantageous to the public, the freer and more general the competition, it will always be the more so.

  Adam Smith

  Competition, Division, Branches

  Adam Smith (2016). “The Wealth of Nations: the Great Master”, p.360, VM eBooks

• Both ground- rents and the ordinary rent of land are a species of revenue which the owner, in many cases, enjoys without any care or attention of his own. The annual produce of the land and labour of the society, the real wealth and revenue of the great body of the people, might be the same after such a tax as before. Ground-rents, and the ordinary rent of land are, therefore, perhaps the species of revenue which can best bear to have a peculiar tax imposed upon them.

  Adam Smith

  Real, Land, People

  Adam Smith (1869). “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 2”, p.437

• The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Foundation, Sacred

  Adam Smith (1814). “An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations. With notes, and an additional vol., by D. Buchanan”, p.200

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