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# Artificers and Retailers

## Definition

Skilled craftsmen and merchants who settle near agricultural areas to provide necessary services and manufactured goods to farmers, forming the initial nucleus of market towns. These include smiths, carpenters, wheelwrights, masons, bricklayers, tanners, shoemakers, tailors, butchers, brewers, and bakers, who create a local market economy through their mutual dependence and service to agricultural producers.

## Source Chapter

Book III, Chapter 1

## Context

Smith identifies these specialized workers as the natural outgrowth of agricultural development, explaining how their settlement near farming communities creates the first urban markets and enables the division of labour that characterizes civilized society.

## Economic Domain

Production

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