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

custom, and education. When they came in to the world, and for the
first six or eight years of their existence, they were, perhaps, very
much alike, and neither their parents nor play-fellows could perceive
any remarkable difference. About that age, or soon after, they come to
be employed in very different occupations. The difference of talents
comes then to be taken notice of, and widens by degrees, till at last
the vanity of the philosopher is willing to acknowledge scarce any
resemblance. But without the disposition to truck, barter, and
exchange, every man must have procured to himself every necessary and
conveniency of life which he wanted. All must have had the same duties
to perform, and the same work to do, and there could have been no such
difference of employment as could alone give occasion to any great
difference of talents.

As it is this disposition which forms that difference of talents, so
remarkable among men of different professions, so it is this same
disposition which renders that difference useful. Many tribes of
animals, acknowledged to be all of the same species, derive from
nature a much more remarkable distinction of genius, than what,
antecedent to custom and education, appears to take place among men.
By nature a philosopher is not in genius and disposition half so
different from a street porter, as a mastiff is from a grey-hound, or
a grey-hound from a spaniel, or this last from a shepherd's dog. Those
different tribes of animals, however, though all of the same species
are of scarce any use to one another. The strength of the mastiff is
not in the least supported either by the swiftness of the greyhound,
or by the sagacity of the spaniel, or by the docility of the
shepherd's dog. The effects of those different geniuses and talents,
for want of the power or disposition to barter and exchange, cannot be
brought into a common stock, and do not in the least contribute to the
better accommodation and conveniency of the species. Each animal is
still obliged to support and defend itself, separately and
independently, and derives no sort of advantage from that variety of
talents with which nature has distinguished its fellows. Among men, on
the contrary, the most dissimilar geniuses are of use to one another;
the different produces of their respective talents, by the general
disposition to truck, barter, and exchange, being brought, as it were,
into a common stock, where every man may purchase whatever part of the
produce of other men's talents he has occasion for,




CHAPTER III.

THAT THE DIVISION OF LABOUR IS LIMITED BY THE EXTENT OF THE MARKET.

As it is the power of exchanging that gives occasion to the division
of labour, so the extent of this division must always be limited by
the extent of that power, or, in other words, by the extent of the