/jp/ - Otaku Culture

>>5163640
The effects of the division of labour, in general business of society, will be more easily understood by considering in what manner it operates in some particular manufactures. It is commonly supposed to be carried further in them than others of more importance: but in those trifling manufactures which are destined to supply the small wants of but a small number of people, the whole number of workmen must be necessarily be small; and those employed in every different branch of the work can often be collected into the same workhouse, and placed at once under the view of the spectator. In those great manufactures, on the contrary, which are destined to supply the great wants of the great body of the people, every different branch of the work employs so great a numver of workmen that it is impossible to collect them all into the same workhouse. We can seldom see more, at one time, than those employed in one single branch. Though in such manufactures, therefore, the work may really be divided into much greater number of parts than in those of a more trifling nature, the division is not near so obvious , and has accordingly been much less observed.

>>5163640
You just wanted to post that picture, didn't you?

>>5163643
To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the division of the labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of machinery employed in it ( to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in a way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. One man draws out a wire, another straights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top of the receiving head; to make the head requires two or three distinct operations; to put it on is a peculiar business, to whiten the pins is another; it is even a trade by itself to put them into the paper; and the important business of making a pin, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations, which, in some manufactories, are all performed by distinct hands, though in others the same man will sometimes perform two or three of them. I have seen a small manufactory of this kind where ten men only were employed, and where some of them consequently performed two or three distinct operations.

>>5163649
But though they were very poor, and therefore but indifferently accommodated with the necessary machinery, they could, when they exerted themselves, make among them about twelve pounds of pins in a day. There are in a pound upwards of four thousand pins of middling size. 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 the peculiar business, they certainly could not each of them have made twenty, perhaps not one pin in a day; that is, certainly not the two hundred and fortieth, perhaps not the four thousand eight hundredth part of what they are at present capable of performing, in consequence of a proper division and combination of their different operations.

>>5163652
In every other art and manufacture, the effects of the division of labour are similar to what they are in this very trifling one; though, in many of them, the labour can neither be so much subdivided, nor reduced to so great a simplicity of operation. The division of labour, however, so far as it can be introduced, occasions, in every art, a proportionable increase of the productive powers of labour. The separation of different trades and employments from one another seems to have taken place in consequence of this advantage. This separation, too, is generally called furthest in those countries which enjoy the highest degree of industry and improvement; what is the work of one man in a rude state of society being generally that of several in an improved one. In every improved society, the farmer is generally nothing but a farmer; the manufacturer, nothing but a manufacturer. The labour, too, which is necessary to produce any one complete manufacture is almost always divided among a great number of hands/ How many different trades are employed in each branch of the linen and woollen manufactures from the growers of the flax and the wool, to the bleachers and smoothers of the linen, or to the dyers and dressers of the cloth! The nature of agriculture, indeed does not admit of so many subdivisions of labour, nor of so complete a separation of one business from another, as manufactures. It is impossible to separate so entirely the business of the grazier from that of the corn-farmer as the trade of the carpenter is commonly separated from that of the smith. The spinner is almost always a distinct person from the weaver; but the ploughman, the harrower, the sower of the seed, and the reaper of the corn, are often the same.

>>5163657
The occasions for those different sorts of labour returning with different seasons of the year, it is impossible that one man should be constantly employed in any one of them. This impossibility of making so complete and entire a separation of all the different branches of labour in this art does not always keep pace with their improvement in manufactures. The most opulent nations, indeed, generally excel all their neighbours in agriculture as well as in manufactures; but they are commonly more distinguished by their superiority in the latter than in the former. Their lands are in general better cultivated, and having more labour and expense bestowed upon them. produce more in proportion to the extent of natural fertility of the ground. But this superiority if produce is seldom much more than in proportion to the superiority of labour and expense. In agriculture, the labour of the rich country is not always much more productive than that of the poor; or, at least, it is never so much more productive as it commonly is in manufactures. The corn of the rich country, therefore, will not always, in the same degree of goodness, come cheaper to the market than that of the poor. The corn of Poland, in the same degree of goodness, is as cheap as that of France, notwithstanding the superior opulence and improvement of the latter country.

>>5163660
The corn of France is, in the corn provinces, fully as good, and in most years nearly about the same price with the corn of England, though, in opulence and improvement, France is perhaps inferior to England. The corn-lands of England, however, are better cultivated than those of France, and the corn-lands of France are said to be much better cultivated than those of Poland. But though the poor country, notwithstanding the inferiority of it's cultivation, can, in some measure, rival the rich in the cheapness and goodness of it's corn, it can pretent to no such competition in its manufactures; at least if those manufactures suit the soil. climate, and situation of the rich country. The silks of France are better and cheaper than those of England, because the silk manufacture, at least under the present high duties upon the importation of raw silk, does not so well suit the climate of England as that of France. But the hardware and the coarse woollens of England are beyond all the comparison superior to those of France, and much cheaper too in the same degree of goodness. In Poland there are said to be scarce any manufactures excepted, without which no country can well subsist.

>>5163663
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.

First, the improvement of the dexterity of the workman necessarily increases the quantity of the work he can perform; and the division of labour, by reducing every man's business to some one simple operation, and by making this operation the sole employment in his life, necessarily increased very much dexterity of the workman. A common smith, who, though accustomed to handle the hammer, has never been used to make nails, if upon some particular occasion he is obliged to attempt it, will scarce, I am assured, be able to make above two or three hundred nails in a day, and those too very bad ones. A smith who has been accustomed to make nails, but whose sole or principal business has not been that of a nailer, can seldom with his utmost diligence make more than eight hundred or a thousand nails a day.

>>5163666
I have seen several boys under twenty years of age who had never exercised any other trade but that of making nails, and who when they exerted themselves, could make, each of them, upwards of two thousand three hundred nails in a day. The making of a nail, however, is by no means one of the simplest operations. The same person blows the bellows, stirs or mend the fire as there is occasion, heats the iron, and forges every part of the nail: in forging the head too he is obliged to change his tools. The different operations into which the making of a pin, or of a metal button, is subdivided, are all of them much more simple, and the dexterity of the person, of whose life it has been the sole business to perform them, is usually much greater. The rapidity with which some of the operations of those manufacturers are performed, exceeds what the human hand could, by those who had never seen them, be supposed capable of acquiring.

>>5163669
Secondly, the advantage which is gained by saving the time commonly lost in passing from one sort of work to another is much greater than we should at first view be apt to imagine it. It is impossible to pass very quickly from one kind of work to another that is carried on in a different place and with quite different tools. A country weaver, who cultivates a small farm, must lose a good deal of time in passing from his loom to the field, and from the field to his loom. When the two trades can be carried on in the same workhouse, the loss of time is no doubt much less. It is even in this case, however, very considerable. A man commonly saunters a little in turning his hand from one sort of employment to another. When he first begins the new work he is seldom very keen and hearty; his mind, as they say does not go to it, and for some time he rather trifles than applies to good purpose. The habit of sauntering and of indolent careless application, which is naturally, or rather necessarily acquired by every country workman who is obliged to change his work and his tools every half hour, and to apply his hand in twenty different ways almost every day of his life renders him almost always slothful and lazy, and incapable of any vigorous application even on the most pressing occasions. Independent, therefore, of his deficiency in point of dexterity, this cause alone must always considerably the quantity of work which he is capable of performing.

Keine-sensei, this is too much information for me to take in at once.

>>5163673
Thirdly, and lastly, everybody must be sensible how much labour is facilitated and abridged by the application of proper machinery. It is unnecessary to give any example. I shall only observe, therefore, that the invention of all those machines by which labour is so much facilitated and abridged seems been originally owing to the division of labour. Men are much more likely to discover easier and readier methods of attaining any object when the whole attention of their minds is directed towards that single object than when it is dissipated among a great variety of things. But in consequence of the division of labour, the whole of every man's attention comes naturally to be directed towards some one very simple object. It is naturally to be expected, therefore that some one or the other of those who are employed in each particular branch of labour should soon find out easier and readier methods of performing their own particular work, wherever the nature of it admits of such improvement.

>>5163685
All the improvements in machinery, however have by no means been the inventions of those who had occasion to use the machines. Many improvements have been made by the ingenuity of the makers of the machines, when to make them became the business of the peculiar trade; and some by that of those who are called philosophers or men of speculation, whose trade it is not to do anything but to observe everything; and who, upon that account, are often capable of combining together the powers of the most distant and dissimilar objects. In the progress of society, philosophy or speculation becomes, like every other employment, the principal or sole trade and occupation of a particular class of citizens. Like every other employment too, it is subdivided into a great number of different branches, each of which affords occupation to a peculiar tribe or class of philosophers; and this subdivision of employment in philosophy, as well as in every other business, improves dexterity, and saves time. Each individual becomes more expert in his own peculiar branch, more work is done upon the whole, and the quantity of science is considerably increased by it.

>>5163678
A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided, were originally the inventions of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. Whoever has been much accustomed to visit such manufactures must frequently have been shown very pretty machines, which were inventions of such workmen in order to facilitate and quicken their particular part of the work. In the first fire-engines, a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended. One of those boys, who loved to play with his companions, observed that, by tying a string from the handle of the valve which opened this communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at the liberty to divert himself with his playfellows. One of the greatest improvements that has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.

>>5163690
It is the great multiplication of the productions of all the different arts, in consequence of the division of labour, which occasions, in a well-governed society, that universal opulence which extends itself to the lowest ranks of the people. Every workman has a great quantity of his own work to dispose of beyond what he himself has occasion for; and every other workman being exactly in the same situation, he is enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity of theirs. He supplies them abundantly with what they have occasion for, and they accommodate him as amply with what he has occasion for, and a general plenty diffuses itself through all different ranks of the society.

>>5163697
Observe the accommodation of the most common artificer or day-labourer in a civilised and thriving country, and you will perceive that the number of people of whose industry a part, though but a small part, has been employed in procuring him this accommodation, exceeds all computation. The woollen coat, for example, which covers the day-labourer, as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen. The shepherd, the sorter of the wool, the wool-comber or carder, the dyer, the scribbler, the spinner, the weaver, the fuller, the dresser, with many others, must all join their different arts in order to complete even this homely production. How many merchants and carriers, besides, must have been employed in transporting the materials from some of those workmen to others who often live in a very distant part of the country! How much commerce and navigation in particular, how many ship-builders, sailors, sail-makers, rope-makers, must have been employed in order to bring together the different drugs made use of by the dyer, which often come from the remotest corners of the world! What a variety of labour, too, is necessary in order to produce the tools of the meanest of those workmen!

>>5163702
To say nothing of such complicated machines as the ship of the sailor, the mill of the fuller, or even the loom of the weaver, let us consider only what a variety of labour is requisite in order to form that very simple machine, the shears with which the shepherd clips the wool. The miner, the builder of the furnace for smelting the ore, the seller of the timber, the burner of the charcoal to be made use of in the smelting-house, the brick-maker, the brick-layer, the workmen who attend the furnace, the mill-wright, the forger, the smith, must all of them join their different arts in order to produce them.

>>5163717
Were we to examine, in the same manner, all the different parts of his dress and household furniture, the coarse linen shirt which he wears next his skin, the shoes which cover his feet, the bed which he lies on, and all the different parts which compose it, the kitchen-grate at which he prepares his victuals, the coals which he makes use of for that purpose, dug from the bowels of the earth, and brought to him perhaps by a long sea and a long land carriage, all other utensils of his kitchen, all the furniture of his table, the knives and forks, the earthen or pewter plates upon which he serves up and divides his victuals, the different hands employed in preparing his bread and his beer, the glass window which lets in the heat and the light, and keeps out the wind and the rain, with all the knowledge and art requisite for preparing that beautiful and happy invention, without which these northern parts of the world could scarce have afforded a very comfortable habitation, together with the tools of all the different workmen employed in producing those different conveniences; if we examine, I say, all these things, and consider what a variety of labour is employed about each of them, we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and co-operation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilised country could not be provided, even according to what we very falsely imagine easy and simple which he is commonly accommodated. Compared, indeed, with the more extravagant luxury of the great, his accommodation must no doubt appear extremely simple and easy; and yet it may be true, perhaps, that the accommodation of a European prince does not always so much exceed that of an industrious and frugal peasant as the accommodation of the latter exceeds that of many an African king, the absolute master of the lives and liberties of ten thousand naked savages.

Sure is Marxism in here

You sure have given me a lot to think about.

>>5163722
>>5163677

This division of labour, from which so many advantages are derived, is not originally the effect of any human wisdom, which foresees and intends that general opulence to which it gives
occasion. It is the necessary, though very slow and gradual consequence of a certain propensity in human nature which has in view no such extensive utility; the propensity to truck, barter,
and exchange one thing for another.

>>5163837
Whether this propensity be one of those original principles
in human nature of which no further account can be given; or
whether, as seems more probable, it be the necessary consequence
of the faculties of reason and speech, it belongs not to our
present subject to inquire. It is common to all men, and to be
found in no other race of animals, which seem to know neither
this nor any other species of contracts. Two greyhounds, in
running down the same hare, have sometimes the appearance of
acting in some sort of concert. Each turns her towards his
companion, or endeavours to intercept her when his companion
turns her towards himself. This, however, is not the effect of
any contract, but of the accidental concurrence of their passions
in the same object at that particular time. Nobody ever saw a dog
make a fair and deliberate exchange of one bone for another with
another dog. Nobody ever saw one animal by its gestures and
natural cries signify to another, this is mine, that yours; I am
willing to give this for that. When an animal wants to obtain
something either of a man or of another animal, it has no other
means of persuasion but to gain the favour of those whose service
it requires.

>>5163842
A puppy fawns upon its dam, and a spaniel endeavours
by a thousand attractions to engage the attention of its master
who is at dinner, when it wants to be fed by him. Man sometimes
uses the same arts with his brethren, and when he has no other
means of engaging them to act according to his inclinations,
endeavours by every servile and fawning attention to obtain their
good will. He has not time, however, to do this upon every
occasion. In civilised society he stands at all times in need of
the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes, while his
whole life is scarce sufficient to gain the friendship of a few
persons. In almost every other race of animals each individual,
when it is grown up to maturity, is entirely independent, and in
its natural state has occasion for the assistance of no other
living creature. But man has almost constant occasion for the
help of his brethren, and it is in vain for him to expect it from
their benevolence only. He will be more likely to prevail if he
can interest their self-love in his favour, and show them that it
is for their own advantage to do for him what he requires of
them. Whoever offers to another a bargain of any kind, proposes
to do this. Give me that which I want, and you shall have this
which you want, is the meaning of every such offer; and it is in
this manner that we obtain from one another the far greater part
of those good offices which we stand in need of.

>>5163845
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. Nobody but a beggar chooses to depend chiefly
upon the benevolence of his fellow-citizens. Even a beggar does
not depend upon it entirely. The charity of well-disposed people,
indeed, supplies him with the whole fund of his subsistence. But
though this principle ultimately provides him with all the
necessaries of life which he has occasion for, it neither does
nor can provide him with them as he has occasion for them. The
greater part of his occasional wants are supplied in the same
manner as those of other people, by treaty, by barter, and by
purchase. With the money which one man gives him he purchases
food. The old clothes which another bestows upon him he exchanges
for other old clothes which suit him better, or for lodging, or
for food, or for money, with which he can buy either food,
clothes, or lodging, as he has occasion.

>>5163847
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. In a tribe of hunters or shepherds a particular person
makes bows and arrows, for example, with more readiness and
dexterity than any other. He frequently exchanges them for cattle
or for venison with his companions; and he finds at last that he
can in this manner get more cattle and venison than if he himself
went to the field to catch them. From a regard to his own
interest, therefore, the making of bows and arrows grows to be
his chief business, and he becomes a sort of armourer. Another
excels in making the frames and covers of their little huts or
movable houses. He is accustomed to be of use in this way to his
neighbours, who reward him in the same manner with cattle and
with venison, till at last he finds it his interest to dedicate
himself entirely to this employment, and to become a sort of
house-carpenter. In the same manner a third becomes a smith or a
brazier, a fourth a tanner or dresser of hides or skins, the
principal part of the nothing of savages. And thus the certainty
of being able to exchange all that surplus part of the produce of
his own labour, which is over and above his own consumption, for
such parts of the produce of other men's labour as he may have
occasion for, encourages every man to apply himself to a
particular occupation, and to cultivate and bring to perfection
whatever talent or genius he may possess for that particular
species of business.

Keine is the best teacher.

>>5163849
The difference of natural talents in different men is, in
reality, much less than we are aware of; and the very different
genius which appears to distinguish men of different professions,
when grown up to maturity, is not upon many occasions so much the
cause as the effect of the division of labour. The difference
between the most dissimilar characters, between a philosopher and
a common street porter, for example, seems to arise not so much
from nature as from habit, custom, and education. When they came
into the world, and for the first six or eight years of their
existence, they were perhaps very much alike, and neither their
parents nor playfellows 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.

this would be better if each post had an image of Keine

>>5163855
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 greyhound, or a greyhound 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 ind 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.

Keine has boobs and ass. Truly superior.

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 market. When the market is very small, no person
can have any encouragement to dedicate himself entirely to one
employment, for want of the power to exchange all that surplus
part of the produce of his own labour, which is over and above
his own consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's
labour as he has occasion for.

I feel like I'm in my old civics class.

>>5163881
There are some sorts of industry, even of the lowest kind,
which can be carried on nowhere but in a great town. A porter,
for example, can find employment and subsistence in no other
place. A village is by much too narrow a sphere for him; even an
ordinary market town is scarce large enough to afford him
constant occupation. In the lone houses and very small villages
which are scattered about in so desert a country as the Highlands
of Scotland, every farmer must be butcher, baker and brewer for
his own family. In such situations we can scarce expect to find
even a smith, a carpenter, or a mason, within less than twenty
miles of another of the same trade. The scattered families that
live at eight or ten miles distance from the nearest of them must
learn to perform themselves a great number of little pieces of
work, for which, in more populous countries, they would call in
the assistance of those workmen. Country workmen are almost
everywhere obliged to apply themselves to all the different
branches of industry that have so much affinity to one another as
to be employed about the same sort of materials. A country
carpenter deals in every sort of work that is made of wood: a
country smith in every sort of work that is made of iron. The
former is not only a carpenter, but a joiner, a cabinet-maker,
and even a carver in wood, as well as a wheel-wright, a
plough-wright, a cart and waggon maker. The employments of the
latter are still more various. It is impossible there should be
such a trade as even that of a nailer in the remote and inland
parts of the Highlands of Scotland. Such a workman at the rate of
a thousand nails a day, and three hundred working days in the
year, will make three hundred thousand nails in the year. But in
such a situation it would be impossible to dispose of one
thousand, that is, of one day's work in the year.

>>5163884
As by means of water-carriage a more extensive market is
opened to every sort of industry than what land-carriage alone
can afford it, so it is upon the sea-coast, and along the banks
of navigable rivers, that industry of every kind naturally begins
to subdivide and improve itself, and it is frequently not till a
long time after that those improvements extend themselves to the
inland parts of the country. A broad-wheeled waggon, attended by
two men, and drawn by eight horses, in about six weeks' time
carries and brings back between London and Edinburgh near four
ton weight of goods. In about the same time a ship navigated by
six or eight men, and sailing between the ports of London and
Leith, frequently carries and brings back two hundred ton weight
of goods. Six or eight men, therefore, by the help of
water-carriage, can carry and bring back in the same time the
same quantity of goods between London and Edinburgh, as fifty
broad-wheeled waggons, attended by a hundred men, and drawn by
four hundred horses. Upon two hundred tons of goods, therefore,
carried by the cheapest land-carriage from London to Edinburgh,
there must be charged the maintenance of a hundred men for three
weeks, and both the maintenance, and, what is nearly equal to the
maintenance, the wear and tear of four hundred horses as well as
of fifty great waggons.

>>5163887
Whereas, upon the same quantity of goods
carried by water, there is to be charged only the maintenance of
six or eight men, and the wear and tear of a ship of two hundred
tons burden, together with the value of the superior risk, or the
difference of the insurance between land and water-carriage. Were
there no other communication between those two places, therefore,
but by land-carriage, as no goods could be transported from the
one to the other, except such whose price was very considerable
in proportion to their weight, they could carry on but a small
part of that commerce which at present subsists between them, and
consequently could give but a small part of that encouragement
which they at present mutually afford to each other's industry.
There could be little or no commerce of any kind between the
distant parts of the world. What goods could bear the expense of
land-carriage between London and Calcutta? Or if there were any
so precious as to be able to support this expense, with what
safety could they be transported through the territories of so
many barbarous nations? Those two cities, however, at present
carry on a very considerable commerce with each other, and by
mutually affording a market, give a good deal of encouragement to
each other's industry.

And she teaches middle schoolers in a fucking village?! Why didn't I have a hot half-beast teacher giving these lessons in my middle school?

>>5163890
Since such, therefore, are the advantages of water-carriage,
it is natural that the first improvements of art and industry
should be made where this conveniency opens the whole world for a
market to the produce of every sort of labour, and that they
should always be much later in extending themselves into the
inland parts of the country. The inland parts of the country can
for a long time have no other market for the greater part of
their goods, but the country which lies round about them, and
separates them from the sea-coast, and the great navigable
rivers. The extent of their market, therefore, must for a long
time be in proportion to the riches and populousness of that
country, and consequently their improvement must always be
posterior to the improvement of that country. In our North
American colonies the plantations have constantly followed either
the sea-coast or the banks of the navigable rivers, and have
scarce anywhere extended themselves to any considerable distance
from both.

Definitely like my old civics class. all you heard in that class was the teacher drone on and on.

>>5163897
The nations that, according to the best authenticated
history, appear to have been first civilised, were those that
dwelt round the coast of the Mediterranean Sea. That sea, by far
the greatest inlet that is known in the world, having no tides,
nor consequently any waves except such as are caused by the wind
only, was, by the smoothness of its surface, as well as by the
multitude of its islands, and the proximity of its neighbouring
shores, extremely favourable to the infant navigation of the
world; when, from their ignorance of the compass, men were afraid
to quit the view of the coast, and from the imperfection of the
art of shipbuilding, to abandon themselves to the boisterous
waves of the ocean. To pass beyond the pillars of Hercules, that
is, to sail out of the Straits of Gibraltar, was, in the ancient
world, long considered as a most wonderful and dangerous exploit
of navigation. It was late before even the Phoenicians and
Carthaginians, the most skilful navigators and ship-builders of
those old times, attempted it, and they were for a long time the
only nations that did attempt it.

>>5163903
Of all the countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea,
Egypt seems to have been the first in which either agriculture or
manufactures were cultivated and improved to any considerable
degree. Upper Egypt extends itself nowhere above a few miles from
the Nile, and in Lower Egypt that great river breaks itself into
many different canals, which, with the assistance of a little
art, seem to have afforded a communication by water-carriage, not
only between all the great towns, but between all the
considerable villages, and even to many farmhouses in the
country; nearly in the same manner as the Rhine and the Maas do
in Holland at present. The extent and easiness of this inland
navigation was probably one of the principal causes of the early
improvement of Egypt.

>>5163910
The improvements in agriculture and manufactures seem
likewise to have been of very great antiquity in the provinces of
Bengal, in the East Indies, and in some of the eastern provinces
of China; though the great extent of this antiquity is not
authenticated by any histories of whose authority we, in this
part of the world, are well assured. In Bengal the Ganges and
several other great rivers form a great number of navigable
canals in the same manner as the Nile does in Egypt. In the
Eastern provinces of China too, several great rivers form, by
their different branches, a multitude of canals, and by
communicating with one another afford an inland navigation much
more extensive than that either of the Nile or the Ganges, or
perhaps than both of them put together. It is remarkable that
neither the ancient Egyptians, nor the Indians, nor the Chinese,
encouraged foreign commerce, but seem all to have derived their
great opulence from this inland navigation.

>>5163912
All the inland parts of Africa, and all that part of Asia
which lies any considerable way north of the Euxine and Caspian
seas, the ancient Scythia, the modern Tartary and Siberia, seem
in all ages of the world to have been in the same barbarous and
uncivilised state in which we find them at present. The Sea of
Tartary is the frozen ocean which admits of no navigation, and
though some of the greatest rivers in the world run through that
country, they are at too great a distance from one another to
carry commerce and communication through the greater part of it.
There are in Africa none of those great inlets, such as the
Baltic and Adriatic seas in Europe, the Mediterranean and Euxine
seas in both Europe and Asia, and the gulfs of Arabia, Persia,
India, Bengal, and Siam, in Asia, to carry maritime commerce into
the interior parts of that great continent: and the great rivers
of Africa are at too great a distance from one another to give
occasion to any considerable inland navigation. The commerce
besides which any nation can carry on by means of a river which
does not break itself into any great number of branches or
canals, and which runs into another territory before it reaches
the sea, can never be very considerable; because it is always in
the power of the nations who possess that other territory to
obstruct the communication between the upper country and the sea.
The navigation of the Danube is of very little use to the
different states of Bavaria, Austria and Hungary, in comparison
of what it would be if any of them possessed the whole of its
course till it falls into the Black Sea.

When the division of labour has been once thoroughly
established, it is but a very small part of a man's wants which
the produce of his own labour can supply. He supplies the far
greater part of them by exchanging that surplus part of the
produce of his own labour, which is over and above his own
consumption, for such parts of the produce of other men's labour
as he has occasion for. Every man thus lives by exchanging, or
becomes in some measure a merchant, and the society itself grows
to be what is properly a commercial society.

>>5163941
But when the division of labour first began to take place,
this power of exchanging must frequently have been very much
clogged and embarrassed in its operations. One man, we shall
suppose, has more of a certain commodity than he himself has
occasion for, while another has less. The former consequently
would be glad to dispose of, and the latter to purchase, a part
of this superfluity. But if this latter should chance to have
nothing that the former stands in need of, no exchange can be
made between them. The butcher has more meat in his shop than he
himself can consume, and the brewer and the baker would each of
them be willing to purchase a part of it. But they have nothing
to offer in exchange, except the different productions of their
respective trades, and the butcher is already provided with all
the bread and beer which he has immediate occasion for. No
exchange can, in this case, be made between them. He cannot be
their merchant, nor they his customers; and they are all of them
thus mutually less serviceable to one another. In order to avoid
the inconveniency of such situations, every prudent man in every
period of society, after the first establishment of the division
of labour, must naturally have endeavoured to manage his affairs
in such a manner as to have at alltimes by him, besides the
peculiar produce of his own industry, a certain quantity of some
one commodity or other, such as he imagined few people would be
likely to refuse in exchange for the produce of their industry.

>>5163947
Many different commodities, it is probable, were
successively both thought of and employed for this purpose. In
the rude ages of society, cattle are said to have been the common
instrument of commerce; and, though they must have been a most
inconvenient one, yet in old times we find things were frequently
valued according to the number of cattle which had been given in
exchange for them. The armour of Diomede, says Homer, cost only
nine oxen; but that of Glaucus cost an hundred oxen. Salt is said
to be the common instrument of commerce and exchanges in
Abyssinia; a species of shells in some parts of the coast of
India; dried cod at Newfoundland; tobacco in Virginia; sugar in
some of our West India colonies; hides or dressed leather in some
other countries; and there is at this day a village in Scotland
where it is not uncommon, I am told, for a workman to carry nails
instead of money to the baker's shop or the alehouse.

Keine sensei, while I fully understand and appreciate the information you are giving us as it may allow us to understand the modern world and it's business practices, just why are you telling us this?

>>5163962
Even though the human population is far to few and far too scattered, I wish you to learn the very foundations of modern economics. This will help you in the long run, since some elder youkai are adept to these arts. Now then, accept my language of love.

>>5163961
In all countries, however, men seem at last to have been
determined by irresistible reasons to give the preference, for
this employment, to metals above every other commodity. Metals
can not only be kept with as little loss as any other commodity,
scarce anything being less perishable than they are, but they can
likewise, without any loss, be divided into any number of parts,
as by fusion those parts can easily be reunited again; a quality
which no other equally durable commodities possess, and which
more than any other quality renders them fit to be the
instruments of commerce and circulation. The man who wanted to
buy salt, for example, and had nothing but cattle to give in
exchange for it, must have been obliged to buy salt to the value
of a whole ox, or a whole sheep at a time. He could seldom buy
less than this, because what he was to give for it could seldom
be divided without loss; and if he had a mind to buy more, he
must, for the same reasons, have been obliged to buy double or
triple the quantity, the value, to wit, of two or three oxen, or
of two or three sheep. If, on the contrary, instead of sheep or
oxen, he had metals to give in exchange for it, he could easily
proportion the quantity of the metal to the precise quantity of
the commodity which he had immediate occasion for.

>>5163992
Different metals have been made use of by different nations
for this purpose. Iron was the common instrument of commerce
among the ancient Spartans; copper among the ancient Romans; and
gold and silver among all rich and commercial nations.
Those metals seem originally to have been made use of for
this purpose in rude bars, without any stamp or coinage. Thus we
are told by Pliny, upon the authority of Timaeus, an ancient
historian, that, till the time of Servius Tullius, the Romans had
no coined money, but made use of unstamped bars of copper, to
purchase whatever they had occasion for. These bars, therefore,
performed at this time the function of money.

>>5163999
The use of metals in this rude state was attended with two
very considerable inconveniencies; first, with the trouble of
weighing; and, secondly, with that of assaying them. In the
precious metals, where a small difference in the quantity makes a
great difference in the value, even the business of weighing,
with proper exactness, requires at least very accurate weights
and scales. The weighing of gold in particular is an operation of
some nicety. In the coarser metals, indeed, where a small error
would be of little consequence, less accuracy would, no doubt, be
necessary. Yet we should find it excessively troublesome, if
every time a poor man had occasion either to buy or sell a
farthing's worth of goods, he was obliged to weigh the farthing.
The operation of assaying is still more difficult, still more
tedious, and, unless a part of the metal is fairly melted in the
crucible, with proper dissolvents, any conclusion that can be
drawn from it, is extremely uncertain. Before the institution of
coined money, however, unless they went through this tedious and
difficult operation, people must always have been liable to the
grossest frauds and impositions, and instead of a pound weight of
pure silver, or pure copper, might receive in exchange for their
goods an adulterated composition of the coarsest and cheapest
materials, which had, however, in their outward appearance, been
made to resemble those metals.

>>5163999
DID SOMEBODY SAID SPARTANS!!!!?

>>5164005
To prevent such abuses, to
facilitate exchanges, and thereby to encourage all sorts of
industry and commerce, it has been found necessary, in all
countries that have made any considerable advances towards
improvement, to affix a public stamp upon certain quantities of
such particular metals as were in those countries commonly made
use of to purchase goods. Hence the origin of coined money, and
of those public offices called mints; institutions exactly of the
same nature with those of the aulnagers and stamp-masters of
woolen and linen cloth. All of them are equally meant to
ascertain, by means of a public stamp, the quantity and uniform
goodness of those different commodities when brought to market.

>>5164009
The first public stamps of this kind that were affixed to
the current metals, seem in many cases to have been intended to
ascertain, what it was both most difficult and most important to
ascertain, the goodness or fineness of the metal, and to have
resembled the sterling mark which is at present affixed to plate
and bars of silver, or the Spanish mark which is sometimes
affixed to ingots of gold, and which being struck only upon one
side of the piece, and not covering the whole surface, ascertains
the fineness, but not the weight of the metal. Abraham weighs to
Ephron the four hundred shekels of silver which he had agreed to
pay for the field of Machpelah. They are said, however, to be the
current money of the merchant, and yet are received by weight and
not by tale, in the same manner as ingots of gold and bars of
silver are at present. The revenues of the ancient Saxon kings of
England are said to have been paid, not in money but in kind,
that is, in victuals and provisions of all sorts. William the
Conqueror introduced the custom of paying them in money. This
money, however, was, for a long time, received at the exchequer,
by weight and not by tale.

>>5164013
The inconveniency and difficulty of weighing those metals
with exactness gave occasion to the institution of coins, of
which the stamp, covering entirely both sides of the piece and
sometimes the edges too, was supposed to ascertain not only the
fineness, but the weight of the metal. Such coins, therefore,
were received by tale as at present, without the trouble of
weighing.

>>5164019
The denominations of those coins seem originally to have
expressed the weight or quantity of metal contained in them. In
the time of Servius Tullius, who first coined money at Rome, the
Roman as or pondo contained a Roman pound of good copper. It was
divided in the same manner as our Troyes pound, into twelve
ounces, each of which contained a real ounce of good copper. The
English pound sterling, in the time of Edward I, contained a
pound, Tower weight, of silver, of a known fineness. The Tower
pound seems to have been something more than the Roman pound, and
something less than the Troyes pound. This last was not
introduced into the mint of England till the 18th of Henry VIII.
The French livre contained in the time of Charlemagne a pound,
Troyes weight, of silver of a known fineness. The fair of Troyes
in Champaign was at that time frequented by all the nations of
Europe, and the weights and measures of so famous a market were
generally known and esteemed. The Scots money pound contained,
from the time of Alexander the First to that of Robert Bruce, a
pound of silver of the same weight and fineness with the English
pound sterling. English, French, and Scots pennies, too,
contained all of them originally a real pennyweight of silver,
the twentieth part of an ounce, and the two-hundred-and-fortieth
part of a pound. The shilling too seems originally to have been
the denomination of a weight. When wheat is at twelve shillings
the quarter, says an ancient statute of Henry III, then wastel
bread of a farthing shall weigh eleven shillings and four pence.

>>5164007

>>5164025
The proportion, however, between the shilling and either the
penny on the one hand, or the pound on the other, seems not to
have been so constant and uniform as that between the penny and
the pound. During the first race of the kings of France, the
French sou or shilling appears upon different occasions to have
contained five, twelve, twenty, and forty pennies. Among the
ancient Saxons a shilling appears at one time to have contained
only five pennies, and it is not improbable that it may have been
as variable among them as among their neighbours, the ancient
Franks. From the time of Charlemagne among the French, and from
that of William the Conqueror among the English, the proportion
between the pound, the shilling, and the penny, seems to have
been uniformly the same as at present, though the value of each
has been very different. For in every country of the world, I
believe, the avarice and injustice of princes and sovereign
states, abusing the confidence of their subjects, have by degrees
diminished the real quantity of metal, which had been originally
contained in their coins.

>>5164039
The Roman as, in the latter ages of the
Republic, was reduced to the twenty-fourth part of its original
value, and, instead of weighing a pound, came to weigh only half
an ounce. The English pound and penny contain at present about a
third only; the Scots pound and penny about a thirty-sixth; and
the French pound and penny about a sixty-sixth part of their
original value. By means of those operations the princes and
sovereign states which performed them were enabled, in
appearance, to pay their debts and to fulfil their engagements
with a smaller quantity of silver than would otherwise have been
requisite. It was indeed in appearance only; for their creditors
were really defrauded of a part of what was due to them. All
other debtors in the state were allowed the same privilege, and
might pay with the same nominal sum of the new and debased coin
whatever they had borrowed in the old. Such operations,
therefore, have always proved favourable to the debtor, and
ruinous to the creditor, and have sometimes produced a greater
and more universal revolution in the fortunes of private persons,
than could have been occasioned by a very great public calamity.

>>5164050
It is in this manner that money has become in all civilised
nations the universal instrument of commerce, by the intervention
of which goods of all kinds are bought and sold, or exchanged for
one another.
What are the rules which men naturally observe in exchanging
them 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.
The word value, it is to be observed, has two different
meanings, and sometimes expresses the utility of some particular
object, and sometimes the power of purchasing other goods which
the possession of that object conveys. The one may be called
"value in use"; the other, "value in exchange." The things which
have the greatest value in use have frequently little or no value
in exchange; and, on the contrary, those which have the greatest
value in exchange have frequently little or no value in use.
Nothing is more useful than water: but it will purchase scarce
anything; scarce anything can be had in exchange for it. A
diamond, on the contrary, has scarce any value in use; but a very
great quantity of other goods may frequently be had in exchange
for it.

I think I'll stop at Chapter 4 for now...

>>5164069
Why the fuck are you posting Wealth of Nations on /jp?

When you fap to Keine, you're fapping to Communism.

A friendly reminder from Hakurei Shrine.

>>5164082
At least teach something half decent like 'Human Action'

>>5164092
>>5164082
Don't be too hasty. Human Action: A Treatise on Economics will come after.

>>5164091
What?

Someone tell me what's going on here?

My judgement is sound, Keine. And I'm not afraid of ghosts or you.

>>5165576

HISTORY!

>this thread.

...The fuck am I reading?

This is the best history class ever!!

This isn't like you, Keine. You don't drone on and on about stuff like this. You make it interesting, or put it in a way the class can understand.
What's wrong?

>>5166688

Actually, her students in the human village seem to consider her classes boring, going by Perfect Memento.

Being taught by Keine-sensei is probably only interesting when it involves Sexy Lessons.

>>5166728
Yeah, but not this bad.

>>5166728
>Sexy Lessons

Like this?

>>5166855

Exactly. Anatomy lessons, hurr hurr, hands-on-study, if you know what I mean, eh?

>>5166855
>>5166905

>>5166967
do-ho-ho. Is Keine upset about me revealing her true classes?

>>5167029
Do you really want to die that badly?