A Treatise on the Industry of Nations (Volume 1)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1839 Excerpt: ... luxury and an ostentatious pride and vanity induce in the rich; and the produce of labour or machinery serve for the comfortable subsistence of a greater number of individuals. CHAPTER VIII. ON THE DIVISION OF EMPLOYMENTS. The vastly greater efficiency of labour in civilized than in savage life, and the superior condition of man which is so strikingly visible when we compare him in the cultivated and the uncultivated state, are in great part owing to the division and combination of employments. Co-operation with distinct departments of labour assigned to separate individuals is peculiar to human beings. It is this which gives them power. If all mankind had continued in that primeval state in which every species of work was performed by each man for himself, the world at this day would have still remained in the extreme of barbarism and poverty. The useful arts could never have been known, and the earth in all its parts would not have been more fully peopled than we find it is in those poor and savage countries where the division of labour and the operations of the arts are alike unknown Man was happily formed with an inclination for society, and was led at a very early period of his history to perceive, amongst other advantages resulting from association, that he acquires dexterity of hand in the performance of his labour, by confining himself to one single occupation. Most probably, peculiar and distinct occupations were introduced at first from private, and not from public, views. Individuals found that they could perform certain kinds of work better than other kinds, and gain a better livelihood by following exclusively one or a few occupations, than many. But though peculiar trades and professions were probably embraced at first from private interest, t...