
Book
One:
OF
THE CAUSES OF IMPROVEMENT IN THE PRODUCTIVE POWERS OF LABOUR,
AND OF THE ORDER ACCORDING TO WHICH ITS PRODUCE IS NATURALLY
DISTRIBUTED AMONG THE DIFFERENT RANKS OF THE PEOPLE.
CHAPTER
II
Of the Principle which gives occasion to
the Division of Labour
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.
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. 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. 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.
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.
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.
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 and 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.
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