An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations

by Adam Smith

Fifthly, the wages of labour in different employments vary according to the probability or impro...

soever

Compute, in any particular place, what is likely to be annually gained, and what is likely to be annually spent, by all the different workmen in any common trade, such as that of shoemakers or weavers, and you will find that the former sum will generally exceed the latter.

The lottery of the law, therefore, is very far from being a perfectly fair lottery; and that as well as many other liberal and honourable professions, is, in point of pecuniary gain, evidently under-recompensed.

notwithstanding

First, the desire of the reputation which attends upon superior excellence in any of them;

secondly, the natural confidence which every man has, more or less, not only in his own abilities, but in his own good fortune.

It seems absurd at first sight, that we should despise their persons, and yet reward their talents with the most profuse liberality.

Such talents, though far from being common, are by no means so rare as imagined. Many people possess them in great perfection, who disdain to make this use of them; and many more are capable of acquiring them, if any thing could be made honourably by them.

The chance of gain is by every man more or less over-valued, and the chance of loss is by most men under-valued,

That the chance of loss is frequently undervalued, and scarce ever valued more than it is worth, we may learn from the very moderate profit of insurers.

premium

imprudence.

preferment,

extricate

Of the five circumstances, therefore, which vary the wages of labour, two only affect the profits of stock; the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the business, and the risk or

security with which it is attended.

pecuniary

Apothecaries'

ordinary profits of stock.

real wages.

apparent

prime cost

prime cost.

extent

prime cost.

diminution

wholesale

retail

commerce

correspondence

First the employments must be well known and long established in the neighbourhood;

secondly, they must be in their ordinary, or what may be called their natural state;

thirdly, they must be the sole or principal employments of th...

projector

commodities

arable

worsted

garret;

First, by restraining the competition in some employments to a smaller number than would otherwise be disposed to enter into them;

secondly, by increasing it in others beyond what it naturally would be;

thirdly, by obstructing the free circulation of labour and stock, both from employment to employm...

The exclusive privileges of corporations are the principal means it makes use of for this purpose.

incorporated

A long term of apprenticeship restrains it more indirectly, but as effectually, by increasing the expense of education.

Sheffield,

parliament

rescind

All such incorporations were anciently called universities, which, indeed, is the proper Latin name for any incorporation whatever.

adjudged,