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nydus/An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of NationsPublic

Adam Smith examines how the annual labor of a nation determines the supply of necessities and conveniences available to its population. He analyzes how the skill of the workforce and the ratio of productive to unproductive laborers influence a society's overall wealth and standard of living.

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CHAPTER V. OF THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF CAPITALS.

the shipping of that country.

The capital, therefore, employed in the home trade of any country, will generally give encouragement and support to a greater quantity of productive labour in that country, and increase the value of its annual produce, more than an equal capital employed in the foreign trade of consumption; and the capital employed in this latter trade has, in both these respects, a still greater advantage over an equal capital employed in the carrying trade. The riches, and so far as power depends upon riches, the power of every country must always be in proportion to the value of its annual produce, the fund from which all taxes must ultimately be paid. But the great object of the political economy of every country, is to increase the riches and power of that country. It ought, therefore, to give no preference nor superior encouragement to the foreign trade of consumption above the home trade, nor to the carrying trade above either of the other two. It ought neither to force nor to allure into either of those two channels a greater share of the capital of the country, than what would naturally flow into them of its own accord.

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