An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
- Language:
- English
- Status:
- Complete work
- Authorship:
- Written by the author
- Condition of the text:
- Some scanning errors (automatic measure over the whole text, not checked by hand) · 4 illegible passages, excluded from answers
- Extent:
- ~400,000 words · 1,899 passages
Cite this work
- APAAdam Smith. (n.d.). An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Digital reproduction: SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adam-smith/an-inquiry-into-the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations
- MLAAdam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Digital reproduction, SigPhi, https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adam-smith/an-inquiry-into-the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations.
- ChicagoAdam Smith. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations. Digital reproduction, SigPhi. https://sigphiai.com/en/works/adam-smith/an-inquiry-into-the-nature-and-causes-of-the-wealth-of-nations.
Reference to the edition that SigPhi reproduces: SigPhi is its digital reproduction, not its publisher. The edition's year is not in the metadata (hence "n.d."), and the translator appears only when recorded.
What it is about
A treatise on how a country's wealth is produced and distributed, which opens by explaining why dividing labour multiplies what can be made.
Context and history
Smith was professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow and worked on the book for more than ten years, including the time he spent in France among the Physiocrats. It appeared in March 1776, the year of American independence. The image of the 'invisible hand', cited as though it were his central thesis, occurs exactly once in it.
Editorial context, not a citable source: unlike the passages of the work itself, these statements cannot be checked against the corpus.
one very simple object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore, that some one or other of those who are employed in each particular branch of labour should soon find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particular work, whenever the nature of it admits of such improvement. A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided, were originally the invention of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures, must frequently have been shewn very pretty machines, which were the inventions of such workmen, in order to facilitate and quicken their own particular part of the work. In the first fire engines {this was the current designation for steam engines}, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his play-fellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour. All the improvements in machinery, however, have by no means been the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines.…