An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Volume 3Mundell, Doig, and Stevenson, Edinburgh; Lackington, Allen and Company Cradock and Joy, and T. Hamilton, London; and Wilson and Son, York., 1809 - Economics |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
a-year according act of parliament afford altogether amount ancient ancient Egypt ancient Greece annual produce annuities artificers assessed Britain capital cent church civilized clergy common considerable consumer consumption court cultivation customs debt declension defrayed depend duchy of Milan duties employed England equal established Europe excise exercises expence exportation fall farmer foreign fortune France frequently fund greater houses hundred importation imposed improvement industry inferior interest joint-stock companies justice kind labour land-tax landlord less levied maintain malt manner manufactures ment merchants militia millions nations naturally necessarily necessary neral never obliged occasion ordinary paid particular payment pence perhaps person principal profit proportion proprietors provinces public revenue quantity raise ranks regulated render rent of land respect royal African company rude produce sect seems seldom shillings society sort sovereign standing army subsistence superior supposed tion trade whole wool
Popular passages
Page 260 - The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities ; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
Page 28 - Consumption is the sole end and purpose of all production ; and the interest of the producer ought to be attended to, only so far as it may be necessary for promoting that of the consumer.
Page 194 - In the progress of the division of labour, the emVOL. III. N ployment 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.
Page 328 - By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without.
Page 261 - The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of uncertainty.
Page 67 - ... the duty of erecting and maintaining certain public works and certain public institutions, which it can never be for the interest of any individual, or small number of individuals, to erect and maintain ; because the profit could never repay the expense to any individual or small number of individuals, though it may frequently do much more than repay it to a great society.
Page 260 - The expense of government to the individuals of a great nation is like the expense of management to the joint tenants of a great estate, who are all obliged to contribute in proportion to their respective interests in the estate. In the observation or neglect of this maxim consists what is called the equality or inequality of taxation.
Page 261 - The tax which each individual is bound to pay ought to be certain, and not arbitrary. The time of payment, the manner of payment, the quantity to be paid, ought all to be clear and plain to the contributor and every other person. (3) Every tax ought to be levied at the time or in the manner in which it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay it.
Page 18 - To hurt in any degree the interest of any one order of citizens, for no other purpose but to promote that of some other, is evidently contrary to that justice and equality of treatment which the sovereign owes to all the different orders of his subjects.
Page 194 - The man whose whole life is spent in performing a few simple operations, of which the effects too 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.