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# Foreign Commerce Manufactures Birth

## Definition

The historical process in European states where foreign trade introduced finer manufactures capable of distant sale, which then combined with existing commerce to stimulate agricultural improvement. This inverted sequence contrasts with the natural order where agriculture precedes manufacturing, representing an artificial stimulus to economic development.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 1

## Context

Smith identifies this as a key feature of European economic development that departed from natural patterns, explaining how foreign commerce served as the catalyst for manufacturing development and subsequent agricultural improvement in ways that reversed the logical sequence of economic progress.

## Economic Domain

Exchange

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