Ad Fontes: Capitalism

Here are some excerpts from Adam Smith's An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations (references are to the margin numbers in the version linked):

The annual labour of every nation is the fund which originally supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniencies of life. [I.I.1]

The greatest improvements in the productive powers of labour [...] have been the effects of the division of labour. [I.1.1]

This division of labour [is the] consequence of a certain propensity in human nature [...]; the propensity to truck, barter, and exchange one thing for another. [I.2.1]

[M]an has almost constant occasion for the help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from their benevolence only. [...] It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our 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. [I.2.2]

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. [I.2.3]

What are the rules which men naturally observe in exchanging [goods] either for money or for one another, I shall now proceed to examine. These rules determine what may be called the relative or exchangeable value of goods. [I.4.12]

These excerpts take us through the opening argument of Wealth of Nations. Given the book's reputation, this amounts to the opening stanza in the chronicle of capitalism, of which marketing is a function. Therefore, this passage has always stuck in my mind as the place to begin when thinking about economics and marketing. I'm going to leave it sit unadorned for now, but I expect I'll return to it periodically as this blog proceeds. Feed back to Chad Whitacre.