Читать книгу An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations - Адам Смит, Adam Smith - Страница 4

Wealth, accumulated in the possession of an individual, is of two descriptions, according to its destination or employment:

1. That reserved for immediate consumption.

2. That employed as capital, for the production of a revenue – book 2, chap. i.

Capital is also of two kinds:

1. Fixed capital, which produces a revenue and still remains in the same hands

2. Circulating capital, which yields no revenue unless it be employed in trade – book 2 chap. i.

The whole accumulated wealth of any community may be divided into three parts:

1. The fund appropriated to the immediate consumption of the proprietors of wealth.

2. The fixed capital of the community.

3. Its circulating capital.

The fixed capital of the society consists,

1. Of all machines and instruments of labour;

2. Of all buildings and edifices erected for the purposes of industry;

3. Of every kind of agricultural improvement which can tend to render the soil more productive;

4. Of the talents and skill which certain members of the community have acquired by time and expense.

The circulating capital of a community consists,

1. In the money in circulation;

2. In the stock of provisions in the hands both of the producers and of the merchants, and from the sale of which they expect to derive a profit;

3. In the materials of lodging, clothing, dress, and ornament, more or less manufactured, which are in the hands of those who are employed in rendering them fit for use and consumption;

4. In the goods more completely fit for consumption, and preserved in warehouses and shops, by merchants who propose to sell them with a profit – book 2, chap. i.

Of the relation existing between the employment of these two kinds of capital – ibid.

Of the mode in which the capital withdrawn from circulation is disposed of – ibid.

The sources which continually renew the circulating capital, as soon as it enters into the fixed capital, or the stock for immediate consumption, are,

1. Lands;

2. Mines and quarries;

3. Fisheries – ibid.

Of the purposes accomplished by circulating coin – book 2, chap. ii; and the expedients which may be resorted to, in order to attain these with less expense, and fewer of those inconveniencies to which money is subjected – ibid.

Of the stock lent at interest; and of those things which regulate the proportion that this kind of stock bears to the whole existing stock of the community. The quantity of stock which may be lent depends in no degree upon the quantity of money in circulation – book 2, chap. iv.

Of the principles which determine the rate of interest – ibid.

There exists a necessary relation between this and the price of land – ibid.