"An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of nations" - читать интересную книгу автора (Adam Smith)

country? How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many
ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been
employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by
the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world?
What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the
tools of the meanest of those workmen! To say nothing of such
complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the
fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a
variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple
machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner,
the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore the feller of the
timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the
smelting-house, the brickmaker, the bricklayer, the workmen who attend
the furnace, the millwright, the forger, the smith, must all of them
join their different arts in order to produce them. Were we to
examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and
household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his
skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and
all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which
he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that
purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him,
perhaps, by a long sea and a long land-carriage, all the other
utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives
and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and
divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his
bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the
light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and
art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention,
without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have
afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all
the different workmen employed in producing those different
conveniencies; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider
what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be
sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many
thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be
provided, even according to, what we very falsely imagine, the easy
and simple manner in which he is commonly accommodated. Compared,
indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his
accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet
it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of an European prince
does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal
peasant, as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an
African king, the absolute masters of the lives and liberties of ten
thousand naked savages.




CHAPTER II.