Adam Smith Selections From The Wealth of Nations, 1776 Book I, Chapter 1. of The Division of Labor: THE Greatest

Adam Smith
Selections from The Wealth of Nations, 1776

(paragraph breaks added)
Book I, Chapter 1. Of the Division of Labor: THE greatest

improvement in the productive powers of labor, 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
labor....To take an example, therefore, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not
educated to this business, nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it,
could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly
could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only
the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which
the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another
straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving, the
head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a
peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them
into the paper; and the important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided
into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some factories, are all performed by
distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of
them.
I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and
where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations. But
though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the
necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them
about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand
pins of a middling size. Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards
of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of
forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred
pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any
of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of
them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day.
Book I, Chapter 2. Of the Principle which gives occasion to the Division of Labor:
THIS division of labor, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the
effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that universal opulence to
which it gives occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence
of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the
propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another... Man has almost
constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from
their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he can interest their self-love
in his favor, and show them that it is for their own advantage to do for him what he
requires of them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes to do this.
Give me that which I want, and you shall have this which you want, is the meaning of
Adam Smith, excerpts from The Wealth of Nations
every such offer; and it is in this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater
art of those good offices which we stand in need of. It is not from the benevolence of
the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to
their own interest.
As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase that we obtain from one another the
greater part of those mutual good offices which we stand in need of, so it is this same
trucking disposition which originally gives occasion to the division of labor. In a tribe of
hunters or shepherds a particular person makes bows and arrows, for example, with
more readiness and dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle or
for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he can in this manner get
more cattle and venison than if he himself went to the field to catch them. From a
regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be his
chief business, and he becomes a sort of armorer, etc...
Book I, Chapter 5. Of the Real and Nominal Price of Commodities, or their Price in
Labor, and their Price in Money: EVERY man is rich or poor according to the degree in
which he can afford to enjoy the necessaries, conveniences, and amusements of human
life. But after the division of labor has once thoroughly taken place, it is but a very small
part of these with which a man's own labor can supply him. The far greater part of them
he must derive from the labor of other people, and he must be rich or poor according to
the quantity of that labor which he can command, or which he can afford to purchase.
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 labor which it enables him to purchase or command. Labor, therefore, is
the real measure of the exchangeable value of all commodities...
Book I, Chapter 8. Of the Wages of Labor: THE produce of labor constitutes the
natural recompense or wages of labor. In that original state of things, which precedes
both the appropriation of land and the accumulation of stock, the whole produce of
labor belongs to the laborer. He has neither landlord nor master to share with him. …
But this original state of things, in which the laborer enjoyed the whole produce of his
own labor, could not last beyond the first introduction of the appropriation of land and
the accumulation of stock. … As soon as land becomes private property, the landlord
demands a share of almost all the produce which the laborer can either raise, or collect
from it. His rent makes the first deduction from the produce of the labor which is
employed upon land. Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant
and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labor above their actual rate.…
A man must always live by his work, and his wages must at least be sufficient to
maintain him. They must even upon most occasions be somewhat more; otherwise it
would be impossible for him to bring up a family, and the race of such workmen could
not last beyond the first generation.... 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
SUSAN E. GALLAGHER, HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT, POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPT, UMASS LOWELL 2
Adam Smith, excerpts from The Wealth of Nations
have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well
fed, clothed, and lodged.
Book IV: On Systems of Political Economy: EVERY individual is continually exerting

himself to find out the most advantageous employment for whatever capital he can
command. It is his own advantage, indeed, and not that of the society, which he has in
view. But the study of his own advantage naturally, or rather necessarily, leads him to
prefer that employment which is most advantageous to the society…
As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his

capital in the support of domestic industry, and so to direct that industry that its
produce may be of the greatest value; every individual necessarily labours to render the
annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally, indeed, neither intends to
promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it. By preferring the
support of domestic to that of foreign industry, he intends only his own security; and by
directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he
intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible
hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse
for the society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest he frequently
promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it.
Book V: On the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth: IN the progress of the

division of labour, the employment of the far greater part of those who live by labour,
that is, of the great body of the people, comes to be confined to a few very simple
operations, frequently to one or two. But the understandings of the greater part of men
are necessarily formed by their ordinary employments. The man whose whole life is
spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects are perhaps always the
same, or very nearly the same, has no occasion to exert his understanding or to exercise
his invention in finding out expedients for removing difficulties which never occur. He
naturally loses, therefore, the habit of such exertion, and generally becomes as stupid
and ignorant as it is possible for a human creature to become. The torpor of his mind
renders him not only incapable of relishing or bearing a part in any rational
conversation, but of conceiving any generous, noble, or tender sentiment, and
consequently of forming any just judgment concerning many even of the ordinary
duties of private life. Of the great and extensive interests of his country he is altogether
incapable of judging, and unless very particular pains have been taken to render him
otherwise, he is equally incapable of defending his country in war. The uniformity of his
stationary life naturally corrupts the courage of his mind, and makes him regard with
abhorrence the irregular, uncertain, and adventurous life of a soldier. It corrupts even
the activity of his body, and renders him incapable of exerting his strength with vigour
and perseverance in any other employment than that to which he has been bred. His
dexterity at his own particular trade seems, in this manner, to be acquired at the
expense of his intellectual, social, and martial virtues. But in every improved and civilised
society this is the state into which the labouring poor, that is, the great body of the
people, must necessarily fall, unless government takes some pains to prevent it.
SUSAN E. GALLAGHER, HISTORY OF POLITICAL THOUGHT, POLITICAL SCIENCE DEPT, UMASS LOWELL 3

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Adam Smith

Selections from The Wealth of Nations, 1776

Book I, Chapter 1. Of the Division of Labor: THE greatest

Book IV: On Systems of Political Economy: EVERY individual is continually exerting

As every individual, therefore, endeavours as much as he can both to employ his

Book V: On the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth: IN the progress of the

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