markitect-main/examples/infospace-with-history/artifacts/sources/introduction.md

id, title, book, chapter, artifact_type

id	title	book	chapter	artifact_type
introduction	INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.	Introduction	0	content

INTRODUCTION AND PLAN OF THE WORK.

  The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it
  with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life which it annually
  consumes, and which consist always either in the immediate produce of that
  labour, or in what is purchased with that produce from other nations.

  According, therefore, as this produce, or what is purchased with it, bears
  a greater or smaller proportion to the number of those who are to consume
  it, the nation will be better or worse supplied with all the necessaries
  and conveniencies for which it has occasion.

  But this proportion must in every nation be regulated by two different
  circumstances: first, by the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which its
  labour is generally applied; and, secondly, by the proportion between the
  number of those who are employed in useful labour, and that of those who
  are not so employed. Whatever be the soil, climate, or extent of territory
  of any particular nation, the abundance or scantiness of its annual supply
  must, in that particular situation, depend upon those two circumstances.

  The abundance or scantiness of this supply, too, seems to depend more upon
  the former of those two circumstances than upon the latter. Among the
  savage nations of hunters and fishers, every individual who is able to
  work is more or less employed in useful labour, and endeavours to provide,
  as well as he can, the necessaries and conveniencies of life, for himself,
  and such of his family or tribe as are either too old, or too young, or
  too infirm, to go a-hunting and fishing. Such nations, however, are so
  miserably poor, that, from mere want, they are frequently reduced, or at
  least think themselves reduced, to the necessity sometimes of directly
  destroying, and sometimes of abandoning their infants, their old people,
  and those afflicted with lingering diseases, to perish with hunger, or to
  be devoured by wild beasts. Among civilized and thriving nations, on the
  contrary, though a great number of people do not labour at all, many of
  whom consume the produce of ten times, frequently of a hundred times, more
  labour than the greater part of those who work; yet the produce of the
  whole labour of the society is so great, that all are often abundantly
  supplied; and a workman, even of the lowest and poorest order, if he is
  frugal and industrious, may enjoy a greater share of the necessaries and
  conveniencies of life than it is possible for any savage to acquire.

  The causes of this improvement in the productive powers of labour, and the
  order according to which its produce is naturally distributed among the
  different ranks and conditions of men in the society, make the subject of
  the first book of this Inquiry.

  Whatever be the actual state of the skill, dexterity, and judgment, with
  which labour is applied in any nation, the abundance or scantiness of its
  annual supply must depend, during the continuance of that state, upon the
  proportion between the number of those who are annually employed in useful
  labour, and that of those who are not so employed. The number of useful
  and productive labourers, it will hereafter appear, is everywhere in
  proportion to the quantity of capital stock which is employed in setting
  them to work, and to the particular way in which it is so employed. The
  second book, therefore, treats of the nature of capital stock, of the
  manner in which it is gradually accumulated, and of the different
  quantities of labour which it puts into motion, according to the different
  ways in which it is employed.

  Nations tolerably well advanced as to skill, dexterity, and judgment, in
  the application of labour, have followed very different plans in the
  general conduct or direction of it; and those plans have not all been
  equally favourable to the greatness of its produce. The policy of some
  nations has given extraordinary encouragement to the industry of the
  country; that of others to the industry of towns. Scarce any nation has
  dealt equally and impartially with every sort of industry. Since the
  down-fall of the Roman empire, the policy of Europe has been more
  favourable to arts, manufactures, and commerce, the industry of towns,
  than to agriculture, the Industry of the country. The circumstances which
  seem to have introduced and established this policy are explained in the
  third book.

  Though those different plans were, perhaps, first introduced by the
  private interests and prejudices of particular orders of men, without any
  regard to, or foresight of, their consequences upon the general welfare of
  the society; yet they have given occasion to very different theories of
  political economy; of which some magnify the importance of that industry
  which is carried on in towns, others of that which is carried on in the
  country. Those theories have had a considerable influence, not only upon
  the opinions of men of learning, but upon the public conduct of princes
  and sovereign states. I have endeavoured, in the fourth book, to explain
  as fully and distinctly as I can those different theories, and the
  principal effects which they have produced in different ages and nations.

  To explain in what has consisted the revenue of the great body of the
  people, or what has been the nature of those funds, which, in different
  ages and nations, have supplied their annual consumption, is the object of
  these four first books. The fifth and last book treats of the revenue of
  the sovereign, or commonwealth. In this book I have endeavoured to shew,
  first, what are the necessary expenses of the sovereign, or commonwealth;
  which of those expenses ought to be defrayed by the general contribution
  of the whole society, and which of them, by that of some particular part
  only, or of some particular members of it: secondly, what are the
  different methods in which the whole society may be made to contribute
  towards defraying the expenses incumbent on the whole society, and what
  are the principal advantages and inconveniencies of each of those methods;
  and, thirdly and lastly, what are the reasons and causes which have
  induced almost all modern governments to mortgage some part of this
  revenue, or to contract debts; and what have been the effects of those
  debts upon the real wealth, the annual produce of the land and labour of
  the society.

BOOK I. OF THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR, AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.