---
id: introduction
title: "INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK."
book: "Introduction"
chapter: 0
artifact_type: content
---

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
      the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the
      savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to
      work is more or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide,
      as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself,
      and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or
      too infirm, to go a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so
      miserably poor, that, from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at
      least think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly
      destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people,
      and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to
      be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilized and thriving nations, on the
      contrary, though a great number of people do not labour 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.

      The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the
      order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the
      different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of
      the first book of this Inquiry.

      Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with
      which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its
      annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the
      proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful
      labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The number of useful
      and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in
      proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting
      them to work, and to the particular way in which it is so employed. The
      second book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the
      manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different
      quantities of labour which it puts into motion, according to the different
      ways in which it is employed.

      Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in
      the application of labour, have followed very different plans in the
      general conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been
      equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some
      nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the
      country; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has
      dealt equally and impartially with every sort of industry. Since the
      down-fall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been more
      favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns,
      than to agriculture, the Industry of the country. The circumstances which
      seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained in the
      third book.

      Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the
      private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any
      regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of
      the society; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of
      political economy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry
      which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the
      country. Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon
      the opinions of men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes
      and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain
      as fully and distinctly as I can those different theories, and the
      principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations.

      To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the
      people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different
      ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of
      these four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue of
      the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to shew,
      first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth;
      which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution
      of the whole society, and which of them, by that of some particular part
      only, or of some particular members of it: secondly, what are the
      different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute
      towards defraying the expenses incumbent on the whole society, and what
      are the principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of those methods;
      and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons and causes which have
      induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of this
      revenue, or to contract debts; and what have been the effects of those
      debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of
      the society.



BOOK I.
OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE
PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS
NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.
