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

dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. We address
ourselves, not to their humanity, but to their self-love, and never
talk to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages. Nobody
but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly upon the benevolence of his
fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does not depend upon it entirely. The
charity of well-disposed people, indeed, supplies him with the whole
fund of his subsistence. But though this principle ultimately provides
him with all the necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it
neither does nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for
them. The greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the
same manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by
purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases food.
The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges for other
clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or for food, or for
money, with which he can buy either food, clothes, or lodging, as he
has occasion.

As it is by treaty, by barter, and by purchase, that we obtain from
one another the greater part of those mutual good offices which we
stand in need of, so it is this same trucking disposition which
originally gives occasion to the division of labour. In a tribe of
hunters or shepherds, a particular person makes bows and arrows, for
example, with more readiness and dexterity than any other. He
frequently exchanges them for cattle or for venison, with his
companions; and he finds at last that he can, in this manner, get more
cattle and venison, than if he himself went to the field to catch
them. From a regard to his own interest, therefore, the making of bows
and arrows grows to be his chief business, and he becomes a sort of
armourer. Another excels in making the frames and covers of their
little huts or moveable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this
way to his neighbours, who reward him in the same manner with cattle
and with venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate
himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of
house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith or a
brazier; a fourth, a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the
principal part of the clothing of savages. And thus the certainty of
being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of his own
labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for such parts of
the produce of other men's labour as he may have occasion for,
encourages every man to apply himself to a particular occupation, and
to cultivate and bring to perfection whatever talent of genius he may
possess for that particular species of business.

The difference of natural talents in different men, is, in reality,
much less than we are aware of; and the very different genius which
appears 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. The difference between the most dissimilar
characters, between a philosopher and a common street porter, for
example, seems to arise not so much from nature, as from habit,