Adam Smith : Wealth of Nations

just some notes from first three chapters of book

• Chapter 1 -Central theme is division of labor.
• Division of labour is there is big organizations also but is not very visible.
• Davison of labour results in proportionate increase in productive powers of laobur.
• Division of labor is difficult in agriculture compared to manufacturing & that is why progress has been slow.
• Three main advantages are – increase of dexterity in every particular workman
• --- saving of time which is lost in passing from one type of work to other
• ----- Invention of great no of machines as someone doing a work repeatedly will device better ways of doing it.
• In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes like any other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens.


• Chapter 2 – What promotes division of labor
• In civilized society man needs co-operation and assistance of others.
• It is not form benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.
• Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his fellow citizens.
• It is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase that we obtain from one another the greater part of those mutual offices which we stand in need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which originally gives occasion to the division of labor.
• The difference in natural talents in different men is , in reality much less than we are aware of ; and the very different genius which appear to distinguish men of different professions , when grown up to maturity , is not upon many occasions so much the cause as the effect of the division of labour.



• Chapter 3
• Division of labor is limited by the extent of the market.
• As by means of water carriage a more extensive market is opened to every sort of industry than what land carriage alone can afford it, so it is upon the sea coast, and along the banks of navigable rivers, that industry of every kind naturally begins to subdivide and improve itself, and it is frequently not till a long time after that those improvements extend themselves to the inland parts of the country.
• Nations around the coast of Mediterranean Sea seems to have been first civilized according to authenticated history because of its peculiar geographical location and topographical features.
• Ancient Indians, Egyptians & Chinese limited themselves to inland navigation.
• River should always branch up to give extensive navigation network ( African rivers) and should not pass through hostile nations.(Danube)
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