On The Wealth of Nations: A Book that Shook the World (BOOKS THAT SHOOK THE WORLD) by P.J. O'Rourke

Author:P.J. O'Rourke
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: Atlantic Books
Published: 2009-10-01T05:00:00+00:00

A nation may import to a greater value than it exports for half a century … even the debts too which it contracts in the principal nations with whom it deals, may be gradually increasing; and yet its real wealth, the exchangeable value of the annual produce of its lands and labour, may, during the same period, have been increasing in a much greater proportion.23

America's would-be neomercantilists might be surprised by the example Smith used to prove his point:

The state of our North American colonies, and of the trade which they carried on with Great Britain, before the commencement of the present disturbances, may serve as a proof that this is by no means an impossible supposition.24

In 1776, Britain was the most powerful country on earth. The reason for this, wrote Smith, was plain. 'That security which the laws in Great Britain give to every man that he shall enjoy the fruits of his own labour, is alone sufficient to make any country flourish.'25 Restrictions of this enjoyment – including restrictions about enjoying a weekend on the couch fiddling with the remote for a plasma TV made in China – do not enhance the flourishing.

In 1776, Britain was so powerful that it could be defeated only by a people intent on establishing laws that would give them even more security for even more enjoyment of all the fruit they could eat.

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