Staatsbibliothek MUNCHEN AN INQUIRY INTO THE NATURE AND CAUSES OF THE WEALTH OF NATIONS, BOOK II. CHA P. III. Of the Accumulation of Capital, or of productive and unproductive Labour. T HERE is one fort of labour which adds to the value of the subject upon which it is bestowed: There is another which has no fuch effect. The former, as it produces a value, may be called productive; the latter, unproductive labour. Thus the labour of a manufacturer adds, generally, to the value of the materials which he works upon, that of his own * Some French authors of great learning and ingenuity have used those words in a different fenfe. In the last chapter of the fourth book, I shall endeavour to show that their sense is an improper one. VOL. II. B maintenance, II. BOOK maintenance, and of his master's profit. The labour of a menial fervant, on the contrary, adds to the value of nothing. Though the manufacturer has his wages advanced to him by his mafter, he, in reality, cofts him no expence, the value of those wages being generally restored, together with a profit, in the improved value of the fubject upon which his labour is beftowed. But the maintenance of a menial fervant never is restored. A man grows rich by employing a multitude of manufacturers: He grows poor, by maintaining a multitude of menial fervants. The labour of the latter, however, has its value, and deferves its reward as well as that of the former. But the labour of the manufacturer fixes and realizes itself in fome particular fubject or vendible commodity, which lafts for fome time at least after that labour is paft. It is, as it were, a certain quantity of labour stocked and stored up to be employed, if neceffary, upon fome other occafion. That subject, or what is the same thing, the price of that fubject, can afterwards, if neceffary, put into motion a quantity of labour equal to that which had originally produced it. The labour of the menial fervant, on the contrary, does not fix or realize itself in any particular fubject or vendible commodity. His fervices generally perish in the very inftant of their performance, and feldom leave any trace or value behind them, for which an equal quantity of fervice could afterwards be procured. THE labour of fome of the most respectable orders in the fociety is, like that of menial fer vants, III. vants, unproductive of any value, and does not CHAP. fix or realize itself in any permanent fubject, or vendible commodity, which endures after that labour is past, and for which an equal quantity of labour could afterwards be procured. The fovereign, for example, with all the officers both of justice and war who ferve under him, the whole army and navy, are unproductive labourers. They are the fervants of the publick, and are maintained by a part of the annual produce of the industry of other people. Their fervice, how honourable, how useful, or how necessary soever, produces nothing for which an equal quantity of service can afterwards be procured. The protection, fecurity, and defence of the commonwealth, the effect of their labour this year, will not purchase its protection, fecurity, and defence, for the year to come. In the fame clafs must be ranked, fome both of the gravest and most important, and fome of the most frivolous profeffions: churchmen, lawyers, physicians, men of letters of all kinds; players, buffoons, musicians, opera-fingers, opera-dancers, &c. The labour of the meaneft of thefe has a certain value, regulated by the very fame principles which regulate that of every other fort of labour; and that of the nobleft and most useful, produces nothing which could afterwards purchase or procure an equal quantity of labour. Like the declamation of the actor, the harangue of the orator, or the tune of the mufician, the work of all of them perishes in the very inftant of its production. BOOK II. BоTH productive and unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all equally maintained by the annual produce of the land and labour of the country. This produce, how great foever, can never be infinite, but must have certain limits. According, therefore, as a finaller or greater proportion of it is in any one year employed in, maintaining unproductive hands, the more in the one cafe and the lefs in the other will remain for the productive, and the next year's produce will be greater or smaller accordingly; the whole annual produce, if we except the fpontaneous productions of the earth, being the effect of productive labour. THOUGH the whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country, is, no doubt, ultimately destined for fupplying the confumption of its inhabitants, and for procuring a revenue to them; yet when it first comes either` from the ground, or from the hands of the productive labourers, it naturally divides itself into two parts. One of them, and frequently the largeft, is, in the first place, deftined for replacing a capital, or for renewing the provisions, materials, and finished work, which had been withdrawn from a capital; the other for conftituting a revenue either to the owner of this capital, as the profit of his ftock; or to fome other perfon, as the rent of his land. Thus, of the produce of land, one part replaces the capital of the farmer; the other pays his profit and the rent of the landlord; and thus conftitutes a revenue both to the owner of this capital, as the profits of his stock; and |