Quotation of the Day

From An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Oxford World Classics Edition, Book 4, Chapter 2 (pages 292-293):

"To give the monopoly of the home market to the produce of domestick industry, in any particular art or manufacture, is in some measure to direct private people in what manner they ought to employ their capitals, and must, in almost all cases, be either a useless or a hurtful regulation.  If the produce of domestick can be bought there as cheap as that of foreign industry, the regulation is evidently useless.  If it cannot, it must generally be hurtful.  It is the maxim of every prudent master of a family, never to attempt to make at home what it will cost him more to make than to buy.  The taylor does not attempt to make his own shoes, but buys them of the shoemaker.  The shoemaker does not attempt to make his own cloaths, but employs a taylor.  The farmer attempts to make neither the one nor the other, but employs those different artificers.  All of them find it for their interest to employ their whole industry in a way in which they have some advantage over their neighbours, and to purchase with a part of its produce, or what is the same thing, with the price of a part of it, whatever else they have occasion for.
What is prudence in the conduct of every private family, can scarce be folly in that of a great kingdom.  If a foreign country can supply us with a commodity cheaper than we ourselves can make it, better buy it of them with some part of the produce of our own industry, employed in a way in which we have some advantage.  The general industry of the country, being always in proportion to the capital which employs it, will not thereby be diminished, no more than that of the above-mentioned artificers; but only left to find out the way in which it can be employed with the greatest advantage."