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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.

Page 486 of 1273
Table of Contents

CHAPTER V. OF THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF CAPITALS.

countries of Europe, however, much good land still remains uncultivated; and the greater part of what is cultivated, is far from being improved to the degree of which it is capable. Agriculture, therefore, is almost everywhere capable of absorbing a much greater capital than has ever yet been employed in it. What circumstances in the policy of Europe have given the trades which are carried on in towns so great an advantage over that which is carried on in the country, that private persons frequently find it more for their advantage to employ their capitals in the most distant carrying trades of Asia and America than in the improvement and cultivation of the most fertile fields in their own neighbourhood, I shall endeavour to explain at full length in the two following books.

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