Smith The Wealth of Nations

1. Auflage 2014
ISBN: 978-3-7368-1080-8
Verlag: BookRix
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 1560 Seiten

The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, a moral philosopher and a pioneer. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, generally referred to by its shortened title The Wealth of Nations, is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in 1776, the book offers one of the world's first collected descriptions of what builds nations' wealth and is today a fundamental work in classical economics. Through reflection over the economics at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution the book touches upon broad topics as the division of labour, productivity and free markets. The first edition of the book sold out in six months. Includes 5 Books: Book I: Of the Causes of Improvement in the productive Powers of Labour; Book II: Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock; Book III: Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations; Book IV: Of Systems of political Economy; Book V: Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Smith, Adam

Leseproben

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF THE HISTORY OF POLITICAL ECONOMY
  Political Economy is essentially a modern department of learning. It may be defined as the science which treats of the production, distribution and exchange of commodities. In the ancient world we have only fitful adumbrations of the conception of such a science. In the Middle Ages proper, as might naturally be expected, no advance is made. Indeed, the idea itself is even lost. Production was almost exclusively for use, and trade or exchange were so little developed that the economic aspect of things never presented itself distinctively. At the end of the fourteenth century, however, when the medieval order was gradually breaking up and the germination of the modern industrial system was beginning to be apparent, a French bishop in the service of Charles. Y. of France, and a translator of Aristotle, revived the teaching of the great master of ancient speculation, but with no immediate results. Early in the sixteenth century, the famous astronomer and mathematician, Copernicus, wrote a treatise on the coining of money, again based on the principles of Aristotle; and toward the end of the century modern economic science began to take shape in the great mercantile theory which held sway more or less almost until the days of Adam Smith. Before his time there were, however, isolated writers who attacked with more or less perspicuity the fallacies of this theory, and had glimpses, in some cases not inconsiderable, the more scientific doctrines developed in later times. The leading developments of political economy since Adam Smith's time have been (1) the classical economy expounded by Ricardo, Malthus, J. B. Say, James Mill,' etc., which for a long time held almost undisputed possession of the field; (2) as a later development, what is known as the "vulgar economy," consisting of the attempts made by writers such as Wagner, Laveleye, Jevons, and Sidgwick, to modify the classical economy in such a way as to justify legislative interference with the unrestrained freedom of modern capitalist production; and (3) the socialistic economy of Karl Marx and his school.   Among the Greeks, where commerce (in the ancient sense of the word, implying the direct exchange of commodities) was considerably extended, are found the first germs of this as of all other sciences. Economic questions could hardly escape the notice of philosophers, least of all of those in the first rank. Accordingly we find Plato and Aristotle alluding to the more important matters connected with the exchange of wealth in a manner which shows considerable insight into the question. Its production, however, entered but slightly into their calculations. The institution of slavery, upon which ancient industry was based, could not fail to obscure the importance of this aspect of the subject. Plato, indeed, perceives that labour is the source of all wealth; but the conditions of his time prevented him from seeing in their true light the consequences of this doctrine. In the "Republic, he says: “That which gives rise to society is our inability to satisfy our own desires, and the need we have for a large number of things. Thus necessity having compelled men to combine with one another, society is established for the sake of mutual assistance. . . . One gives to another what he has in return for what he has not, only because he believes it will be to his advantage. “And then he goes on to show the beneficial results of the division of labour.   A much less important figure, Xenophon, has also some interesting observations on the subject. His "Oikonomikos, " or " The Economist,” though primarily dealing with the domestic economy of the Greeks and the practice of agriculture, is interspersed with passages concerned with social economy in its wider sense. He quaintly speaks of wealth as whatever is useful to a man. "A man's wealth is only what benefits him. Suppose a man used his money to buy a mistress by whose influence his body, his soul, and his household would be all made worse, how could we then say that his money was of any advantage to him?   We may then exclude money also from being counted as wealth, if it is in the hands of one who does not know how to use it." But he believes that money differs essentially from other kinds of wealth. "There is this difference," he writes, "between silver getting and other professions, that whereas other men — braziers and blacksmiths, for instance — when their trades are overstocked, are injured. because the price of their commodities is necessarily lowered by the multitude of sellers, similarly a good harvest and a plentiful vintage does harm to the farmers, and forces them to leave their occupations, and to turn merchants or bankers; with silver it is otherwise; the more ore is found, and the more mines are worked, the more people seek to possess it, and the more men are employed. ... If there are any who have more than they require, they hoard it up with as much pleasure as if they actually made use of it. . . . And in war what resources have we left but silver to purchase necessaries for our support, and to hire allies for our defence?" ‘We find here the germs of the mercantile theory, although Xenophon, in common with most of his contemporaries, regarded agriculture as the only industrial occupation not altogether contemptible for the free man. His view of the relative advantages to the human constitution of the agricultural and the handicraft life displays a considerable amount of enlightenment, on one side of the question at least. "Not only are the mechanical arts despised, but States also have a bad opinion of them — and justly. For they injure the health of the workmen and overseers, by compelling them to sit indoors, and often all day before a fire, and when the body is weakened the mind also is made weaker and weaker." But in this depreciation of the artisan's craft we see the beginning of the physiocratic fallacy that agriculture is the only original source of wealth. The following extract from the "Oikonomikos" will illustrate the view of slavery common to the ancients, and which appears, as will be seen, no less in Aristotle and later writers. He takes it for granted that the citizen will have slaves to work for him. "Men do not live as animals do, under the open vault of heaven, but evidently require shelter. To have anything to bring within that shelter, they must also have men to perform the works of the field, such as tilling and sowing, planting trees, tending the flocks, from which are obtained the necessaries of life. And, further, when these necessaries are brought within, they must have others to look after them, as well as a wife to superintend the business of the house.”   Before leaving Xenophon we will give one more extract which may be taken as the anticipation in the ancient world of the modern economic objection to war as held by the Cobden-Bright school. "If any man," he writes, "can have so wild a notion as to imagine that war will contribute more to the increase of riches than peace, I know no better way to decide the controversy than by appealing to the experience of former ages, and producing precedents to the contrary out of our own story. ... It is an absurd supposition to imagine that peace will weaken our strength, and ruin our authority and reputation abroad, for of all governments those are happiest who have continued longest without war.”   The views of Aristotle on the subject of economy are contained partly in his "Ethics" and partly in his "Politics." The chapters of the fifth book of the "Ethics,” relating to the subject, are too familiar to need quotation.   The "Politics" contains the following statement on the subject of money, in which, as will be seen, an approximation is made to a correct view of the function of money.   Plato also appears to have had reasonable views upon this subject. Speaking of early societies, Aristotle writes: "There were different things which they had to give in exchange for what they wanted, a kind of barter which is still practiced among barbarous nations who exchange with one another the necessaries of life: giving and receiving wine, for example, in exchange for coin and the like. . . .   But the various necessaries of life are not easily carried about, and hence men agreed to employ in their dealings with each other something which was intrinsically useful, and easily applicable to the purposes of life — for example, iron, silver, and the like. Of this the value was at first measured by size and weight; but in process of time a stamp was put upon it to save the trouble of weighing, and to mark the value. . . . Wealth is assumed by many to be only a quantity of coin. . . . Others maintain that coined money is a sham, a thing not natural, but conventional only, which would have no value or use for any of the purposes of daily life if another commodity were substituted by the users. Indeed, he who is rich in coin may often be in want of necessary food. And how can that be wealth of which a man may have a great abundance, and yet perish with hunger, like Midas in the fable, whose insatiable prayer turned everything that was set before him into gold."   In the same connection Aristotle considers the various ways of money-making, and incidentally refers to the abhorrence of the trade of money-lending, which was universal throughout the ancient world. "The most hated sort," he writes, "of money-making, and with reason, is usury.”   Another passage, also from the "Politics," shows that the ancients looked upon slavery as no less a natural and permanent institution, than the modern middle-class...