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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Adam Smith

Labor was the first price, the original purchase – money that was paid for all things.
ADAM SMITH

Economy Money Price Work
Have lots of experiments, but make sure they’re strategically focused.
ADAM SMITH

Advice Experiment Focus Strategy
A very poor man may be said in some sense to have a demand for a coach and six; he might like to have it; but his demand is not an effectual demand, as the commodity can never be brought to market in order to satisfy it.
ADAM SMITH

Demand Man Market Poor Product Satisfaction
The theory that can absorb the greatest number of facts, and persist in doing so, generation after generation, through all changes of opinion and detail, is the one that must rule all observation.
ADAM SMITH

Change Fact Generation Greatness Mathematics Opinion Rule Theory
Ask any rich man of common prudence to which of the two sorts of people he has lent the greater part of his stock, to those who, he thinks, will employ it profitably, or to those who will spend it idly, and he will laugh at you for proposing the question.
ADAM SMITH

Employment Greatness Laughter Man People Propose Rich Thinking
Science is the great antidote to the poison of enthusiasm and superstition.
ADAM SMITH

Belief Enthusiasm Medicine Poison Science Superstition
By pursuing his own interest (the individual) frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.
ADAM SMITH

Goodness Myself Pursue Society Trade
With the greater part of rich people, the chief enjoyment of riches consists in the parade of riches.
ADAM SMITH

Enjoyment Greatness People Rich
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
ADAM SMITH

Administration Carry Easy Justice Low Nature Peace State Tolerance
Great nations are never impoverished by private, though they sometimes are by public prodigality and misconduct.
ADAM SMITH

Destruction Greatness Nation Poor Privacy
As soon as the land of any country has all become private property, the landlords, like all other men, love to reap where they never sowed, and demand a rent even for its natural produce.
ADAM SMITH

Country Demand Land Love Man Natural Privacy Produce Property
The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it is the most sacred and inviolable.
ADAM SMITH

Foundation Man Property
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this – no dog exchanges bones with another.
ADAM SMITH

Animal Attitude Character Dog Man
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
ADAM SMITH

Flourish Greatness Happiness Misery Poor Society
All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.
ADAM SMITH

Age Kind Man Master Ourselves People World
Every tax ought to be so contrived as both to take out and to keep out of the pockets of the people as little as possible, over and above what it brings into the public treasury of the State.
ADAM SMITH

People Possible Tax Treasure

Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

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Civil government, so far as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, or of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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