Conversations on Political Economy

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONVERSATION V. ON THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. ORIGIN OF BARTER. DIVISION OF LABOUR. EXTRACTS FROM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS ON THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. ADVANTAGES OF MACHINERY. EFFECTS OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR ON THE MORALS AND INTELLECTS OF THE PEOPLE. RECAPITULATION. MRS. B. have ascertained that the...
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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CONVERSATION V. ON THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. ORIGIN OF BARTER. DIVISION OF LABOUR. EXTRACTS FROM SMITH'S WEALTH OF NATIONS ON THE DIVISION OF LABOUR. ADVANTAGES OF MACHINERY. EFFECTS OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR ON THE MORALS AND INTELLECTS OF THE PEOPLE. RECAPITULATION. MRS. B. have ascertained that the establishment and security of property were the chief causes of the emancipation of mankind from the shackles of sloth: and ignorance; but there are other subordinate causes which tend greatly to promote the progress of industry and civilisation. The first of these is the introduction of exchange or barter. We observed that when men found they could place a reliance on the security of their possessions, they laboured with redoubled activity, and far from being satisfied with a scanty and temporary maintenance, they provide for the future, they accumulate a little store not only of the necessaries, but of the comforts and conveniencies of life. The one has a stock of arrows for the chase, another of provisions for the winter, a third of clothes or ornaments for his person. They will remain in undisturbed possession of this little property; but those who can no longer obtain it by force or fraud will endeavour to procure it by other means. In the hunting season they will apply to the fabricator of arrows; but they will not go to him with empty hands; they must be provided with something to offer in exchange for the arrows, something which they think will tempt him to part with them: whilst those who have nothing to give in return will wish in vain to obtain them. Here then is a new incitement to a spirit of industry. Whoever has accumulated more than he wants of any commodity, may find means of exchanging the surplus for something that will gratify other des...