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Bonus Quotation of the Day…

… is from page 340 of the 1982 Liberty Fund issue of the 1978 Oxford University Press edition of Adam Smith’s Lectures on Jurisprudence:

The unassisted industry of a savage can not any way procure him those things which are now become necessary to the meanest artist. We may see this odds in comparing the way of life of an ordinary day-labourer in England or Holland to that of a savage prince, who has the lives and liberties of a thousand or 10000 naked savages at his disposall. It appears evident that this man, whom we falsely account to live in a simple and plain manner, is far better supplied than the monarch himself. Every part of his cloathing, utensils, and food has been produced by the joint labour of an infinite number of hands, and these again required a vast number to provide them in tools for their respective employments. So that this labourer could not be provided in this simple manner (as we call it) without the concurrence of some 1000 hands. His life indeed is simple when compared to the luxury and profusion of an European grandee. But perhaps the affluence and luxury of the richest does not so far exceed the plenty and abundance of an industrious farmer as this latter does the unprovided and unnesisted manner of life of the most respected savage.

DBx: Again wishing the Great Scot a Happy 300th Birthday!

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