Sketches of Political Economy |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam Smith adapted amount BOUVERIE STREET BOUVERIE-STREET bricklayer Bristol capital capitalists cloth co-operation coat combination commodity consequently consumed cultivator degree department of industry division of labour duction earn Edition employed employers employment England English exchange exercises Fables and Parables FLEET-STREET give gold and silver HALL COURT increase J. S. LAURIE land land-tax landlord landowner LAURIE'S less levied lock-out MANUAL manufacture MATHEMATICAL GEOGRAPHY means ment natural monopoly obtain out-door relief paid parish payment person pins ployment Political Economy Poor Law poor-rates portion possess precious metals present principle produce profit purpose quantity Rack-rent raise rate of wages READER reading remuneration rent revenue Revised Code saving seller shillings ship-building ships SIMPKIN STANDARD strike success supply things THOMAS MURBY Thousand tion Tithe Commutation tithe-proprietor trade tradesman union wealth wealthless workhouse workmen young
Popular passages
Page 55 - Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the state.
Page 27 - This great increase of the quantity of work which, in consequence of the division of labour, the same number of people are capable of performing, is owing to three different circumstances; first, to the increase of dexterity in every particular workman; secondly, to the saving of the time which is commonly lost in passing from one species of work to another ; and lastly, to the invention of a great number of machines which facilitate and abridge labour, and enable one man to do the work of many.
Page 54 - Where it is otherwise, every person subject to the tax is put more or less in the power of the taxgatherer, who can either aggravate the tax upon any obnoxious contributor or extort, by the terror of such aggravation, some present or perquisite to himself.
Page 54 - The subjects of every state ought to contribute towards the support of the government, as nearly as possible, in proportion to their respective abilities; that is, in proportion to the revenue which they respectively enjoy under the protection of the state.
Page 56 - First? the levying of it may require a great number of officers, whose salaries may eat up the greater part of the produce of the tax, and whose perquisites may impose another additional tax upon the people.
Page 55 - The certainty of what each individual ought to pay is, in taxation, a matter of so great importance, that a very considerable degree of inequality, it appears, I believe, from the experience of all nations, is not near so great an evil as a very small degree of -uncertainty.
Page 34 - A mason or bricklayer, on the contrary, can work neither in hard frost nor in foul weather, and his employment at all other times depends upon the occasional calls of his customers. He is liable, in consequence, to be frequently without any. What he earns, therefore, while he is employed, must not only maintain him while he is idle, but make him some compensation for those anxious and desponding moments which the thought of so precarious a situation must sometimes occasion.
Page 26 - Those ten persons, therefore, could make among them upwards of forty-eight thousand pins in a day. Each person, therefore, making a tenth part of forty-eight thousand pins, might be considered as making four thousand eight hundred pins in a day. But if they had all wrought separately and independently, and without any of them having been educated to this peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day...
Page 55 - ... time when it is most likely to be convenient for the contributor to pay; or when he is most likely to have wherewithal to pay. Taxes upon such consumable goods as are articles of luxury, are all finally paid by the consumer, and generally in a manner that is very convenient to him. He pays them by little and little, as he has occasion to buy the goods.
Page 32 - ... first, the agreeableness or disagreeableness of the employments themselves ; secondly, the easiness and cheapness, or the difficulty and expence of learning them; thirdly, the constancy or inconstancy of employment in them; fourthly, the small or great trust which must be reposed in those who exercise them; and fifthly, the probability or improbability of success in them.