An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith [e book reader pdf TXT] 📗
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By necessaries I understand, not only the commodities which are
indispensibly necessary for the support of life, but whatever the
custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people,
even of the lowest order, to be without. A linen shirt, for
example, is, strictly speaking, not a necessary of life. The
Greeks and Romans lived, I suppose, very comfortably, though they
had no linen. But in the present times, through the greater part
of Europe, a creditable daylabourer would be ashamed to appear
in public without a linen shirt, the want of which would be
supposed to denote that disgraceful degree of poverty, which, it
is presumed, nobody can well fall into without extreme bad
conduct. Custom. in the same manner, has rendered leather shoes a
necessary of life in England. The poorest creditable person, of
either sex, would be ashamed to appear in public without them. In
Scotland, custom has rendered them a necessary of life to the
lowest order of men ; but not to the same order of women, who
may, without any discredit, walk about barefooted. In France,
they are necessaries neither to men nor to women; the lowest rank
of both sexes appearing there publicly, without any discredit,
sometimes in wooden shoes, and sometimes barefooted. Under
necessaries, therefore, I comprehend, not only those things which
nature, but those things which the established rules of decency
have rendered necessary to the lowest rank of people. All other
things I call luxuries, without meaning, by this appellation, to
throw the smallest degree of reproach upon the temperate use of
them. Beer and ale, for example, in Great Britain, and wine, even
in the wine countries, I call luxuries. A man of any rank may,
without any reproach, abstain totally from tasting such liquors.
Nature does not render them necessary for the support of life ;
and custom nowhere renders it indecent to live without them.
As the wages of labour are everywhere regulated, partly by the
demand for it, and partly by the average price of the necessary
articles of subsistence; whatever raises this average price must
necessarily raise those wages; so that the labourer may still be
able to purchase that quantity of those necessary articles which
the state of the demand for labour, whether increasing,
stationary, or declining, requires that he should have.{See book
i.chap. 8} A tax upon those articles necessarily raises their
price somewhat higher than the amount of the tax, because the
dealer, who advances the tax, must generally get it back, with a
profit. Such a tax must, therefore, occasion a rise in the wages
of labour, proportionable to this rise of price.
It is thus that a tax upon the necessaries of life operates
exactly in the same manner as a direct tax upon the wages of
labour. The labourer, though he may pay it out of his hand,
cannot, for any considerable time at least, be properly said even
to advance it. It must always, in the long-run, be advanced to
him by his immediate employer, in the advanced state of wages.
His employer, if he is a manufacturer, will charge upon the price
of his goods the rise of wages, together with a profit, so that
the final payment of the tax, together with this overcharge, will
fall upon the consumer. If his employer is a farmer, the final
payment, together with a like overcharge, will fall upon the rent
of the landlord.
It is otherwise with taxes upon what I call luxuries, even upon
those of the poor. The rise in the price of the taxed
commodities, will not necessarily occasion any rise in the wages
of labour. A tax upon tobacco, for example, though a luxury of
the poor, as well as of the rich, will not raise wages. Though it
is taxed in England at three times, and in France at fifteen
times its original price, those high duties seem to have no
effect upon the wages of labour. The same thing maybe said of the
taxes upon tea and sugar, which, in England and Holland, have
become luxuries of the lowest ranks of people; and of those upon
chocolate, which, in Spain, is said to have become so.
The different taxes which, in Great Britain, have, in the course
of the present century, been imposed upon spiritous liquors, are
not supposed to have had any effect upon the wages of labour. The
rise in the price of porter, occasioned by an additional tax of
three shillings upon the barrel of strong beer, has not raised
the wages of common labour in London. These were about eighteen
pence or twenty pence a-day before the tax, and they are not more
now.
The high price of such commodities does not necessarily diminish
the ability of the inferior ranks of people to bring up families.
Upon the sober and industrious poor, taxes upon such commodities
act as sumptuary laws, and dispose them either to moderate, or to
refrain altogether from the use of superfluities which they can
no longer easily afford. Their ability to bring up families, in
consequence of this forced frugality, instead of being
diminished, is frequently, perhaps, increased by the tax. It is
the sober and industrious poor who generally bring up the most
numerous families, and who principally supply the demand for
useful labour. All the poor, indeed, are not sober and
industrious ; and the dissolute and disorderly might continue to
indulge themselves in the use of such commodities, after this
rise of price, in the same manner as before, without regarding
the distress which this indulgence might bring upon their
families. Such disorderly persons, however, seldom rear up
numerous families, their children generally perishing from
neglect, mismanagement, and the scantiness or unwholesomeness of
their food. If by the strength of their constitution, they
survive the hardships to which the bad conduct of their parents
exposes them, yet the example of that bad conduct commonly
corrupts their morals ; so that, instead of being useful to
society by their industry, they become public nuisances by their
vices and disorders. Through the advanced price of the luxuries
of the poor, therefore, might increase somewhat the distress of
such disorderly families, and thereby diminish somewhat their
ability to bring up children, it would not probably diminish much
the useful population of the country.
Any rise in the average price of necessaries, unless it be
compensated by a proportionable rise in the wages of labour, must
necessarily diminish, more or less, the ability of the poor to
bring up numerous families, and, consequently, to supply the
demand for useful labour; whatever may be the state of that
demand, whether increasing, stationary, or declining; or such as
requires an increasing, stationary, or declining population.
Taxes upon luxuries have no tendency to raise the price of any
other commodities, except that of the commodities taxed. Taxes
upon necessaries, by raising the wages of labour, necessarily
tend to raise the price of all manufactures, and consequently to
diminish the extent of their sale and consumption. Taxes upon
luxuries are finally paid by the consumers of the commodities
taxed, without any retribution. They fall indifferently upon
every species of revenue, the wages of labour, the profits of
stock, and the rent of land. Taxes upon necessaries, so far as
they affect the labouring poor, are finally paid, partly by
landlords, in the diminished rent of their lands, and partly by
rich consumers, whether landlords or others, in the advanced
price of manufactured goods; and always with a considerable
overcharge. The advanced price of such manufactures as are real
necessaries of life, and are destined for the consumption of the
poor, of coarse woollens, for example, must be compensated to the
poor by a farther advancement of their wages. The middling and
superior ranks of people, if they understood their own interest,
ought always to oppose all taxes upon the necessaries of life, as
well as all taxes upon the wages of labour. The final payment of
both the one and the other falls altogether upon themselves, and
always with a considerable overcharge. They fall heaviest
upon the landlords, who always pay in a double capacity ; in that
of landlords, by the reduction, of their rent ; and in that of
rich consumers, by the increase of their expense. The observation
of Sir Matthew Decker, that certain taxes are, in the price of
certain goods, sometimes repeated and accumulated four or five
times, is perfectly just with regard to taxes upon the
necessaries of life. In the price of leather, for example,
you must pay not only for the tax upon the leather of your own
shoes, but for a part of that upon those of the shoemaker and the
tanner. You must pay, too, for the tax upon the salt, upon the
soap, and upon the candles which those workmen consume while
employed in your service ; and for the tax upon the leather,
which the saltmaker, the soap-maker, and the candle-maker
consume, while employed in their service.
In Great Britain, the principal taxes upon the necessaries of
life, are those upon the four commodities just now mentioned,
salt, leather, soap, and candles.
Salt is a very ancient and a very universal subject of taxation.
It was taxed among the Romans, and it is so at present in, I
believe, every part of Europe. The quantity annually consumed by
any individual is so small, and may be purchased so gradually,
that nobody, it seems to have been thought, could feel very
sensibly even a pretty heavy tax upon it. It is in England taxed
at three shillings and fourpence a bushel; about three times the
original price of the commodity. In some other countries, the tax
is still higher. Leather is a real necessary of life. The use of
linen renders soap such. In countries where the winter nights
are long, candles are a necessary instrument of trade.
Leather and soap are in Great Britain taxed at three halfpence
a-pound; candles at a penny; taxes which, upon the original price
of leather, may amount to about eight or ten per cent. ; upon
that of soap, to about twenty or five-and-twenty per cent. ; and
upon that of candles to about fourteen or fifteen per cent.;
taxes which, though lighter than that upon salt, are still very
heavy. As all those four commodities are real necessaries of
life, such heavy taxes upon them must increase somewhat the
expense of the sober and industrious poor, and must consequently
raise more or less the wages of their labour.
In a country where the winters are so cold as in Great Britain,
fuel is, during that season, in the strictest sense of the word,
a necessary of life, not only for the purpose of dressing
victuals, but for the comfortable subsistence of many different
sorts of workmen who work within doors ; and coals are the
cheapest of all fuel. The price of fuel has so important an
influence upon that of labour, that all over Great Britain,
manufactures have confined themselves principally to the coal
contries; other parts of the country, on account of the high
price of this necessary article, not being able to work so cheap.
In some manufactures, besides, coal is a necessary instrument of
trade ; as in those of glass, iron, and all other metals. If a
bounty could in any case be reasonable, it might perhaps be so
upon the transportation of coals from those parts of the country
in which they abound, to those in which they are wanted.
But the legislature, instead of a bounty, has imposed a tax of
three shillings and threepence a-ton upon coals carried
coastways; which, upon most sorts of coal, is more than sixty per
cent. of the original price at the coal pit. Coals carried,
either by land or
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