The Wealth of Nations Books I-III by Adam Smith

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 I
OF THE DIVISION OF LABOUR
THE greatest improvement in the productive powers of labour, and
the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgement with which it
is anywhere directed, or applied, seem to have been the effects of
the division of labour.
The effects of the division of labour, in the 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 furthest in some very trifling ones; not
perhaps that it really is carried further in them than in 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 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
number 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 a much greater

The Wealth of Nations Books I-III by Adam Smith