Frases de Adam Smith

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“No hay arte que un gobierno aprenda antes de otro que el de extraer dinero de los bolsillos de la gente.”

“No es por la benevolencia del carnicero, del cervecero y del panadero que podemos contar con nuestra cena, sino por su propio interés.”

“No puede haber una sociedad floreciente y feliz cuando la mayor parte de sus miembros son pobres y desdichados.”

“Si abordas una situación como asunto de vida o muerte, morirás muchas veces.”

“En realidad, la atracción o el afecto no son más que simpatía de la costumbre.”

“Rechaza específicamente las intervenciones particulares del Estado para fomentar tal o cual actividad, para proteger tal o cual sector en mayor beneficio de la comunidad. El argumento que emplea es profundamente práctico: el Estado no sabe cómo hacerlo.”

“La ciencia es el gran antídoto contra el veneno del entusiasmo y la superstición.”

“Propone enriquecer tanto al pueblo como al soberano.”

“Los bienes pueden servir para muchos otros propósitos además de comprar dinero, pero el dinero no puede servir para ningún otro propósito además de comprar bienes.”

“Though the profusion of Government must undoubtedly have retarded the natural progress of England to wealth and improvement, it has not been able to stop it.”

“If the importation of foreign cattle, for example, were made ever so free, so few could be imported, that the grazing trade of Great Britain could be little affected by it. Live cattle are, perhaps, the only commodity of which the transportation is more expensive by sea than by land.”

“Mercantile jealousy is excited, and both inflames, and is itself inflamed, by the violence of national animosity:…”

“Goods can serve many other purposes besides purchasing money, but money can serve no other purpose besides purchasing goods.”

“The freest importation of salt provisions, in the same manner, could have as little effect upon the interest of the graziers of Great Britain as that of live cattle. Salt provisions are not only a very bulky commodity, but when compared with fresh meat, they are a commodity both of worse quality, and as they cost more labour and expence, of higher price. They could never, therefore, come into competition with the fresh meat, though they might with the salt provisions of the country.”

“Upstart greatness is everywhere less respected than ancient greatness.”

“Such taxes [upon the necessaries of life], when they have grown up to a certain height, are a curse equal to the barrenness of the earth and the inclemency of the heavens; and yet it is in the richest and most industrious countries that they have been most generally imposed. No other countries could support so great a disorder.”

“We do not, however, reckon that trade disadvantageous which consists in the exchange of the hard-ware of England for the wines of France; and yet hard-ware is a very durable commodity, and were it not for this continual exportation, might too be accumulated for ages together, to the incredible augmentation of the pots and pans of the country. But it readily occurs that the number of such utensils is in every country necessarily limited by the use which there is for them; that it would be absurd to have more pots and pans than were necessary for cooking the victuals usually consumed there; and that if the quantity of victuals were to increase, the number of pots and pans would readily increase along with it, apart of the increased quantity of victuals being employed in purchasing them, or in maintaining an additional number of workman whose business it was to make them.”

“To found a great empire for the sole purpose of raising up a people of customers, may at first appear a project fit only for a nation of shopkeepers. It is however, a project altogether unfit for a nation of shopkeepers; but extremely fit for a nation whose government is influenced by shopkeepers.”

“The interest of the dealers, however, in any particular branch of trade or manufactures, is always in some respects different from, and even opposite to, that of the public. To widen the market and to narrow the competition, is always the interest of the dealers.”

“I have no great faith in political arithmetic, and I mean not to warrant the exactness of either of these computations.”

“The value of money is in proportion to the quantity of the necessaries of life which it will purchase.”

“There is no art which one government sooner learns of another than that of draining money from the pockets of the people.”

“Justice, however, never was in reality administered gratis in any country. Lawyers and attornies, at least, must always be paid by the parties; and, if they were not, they would perform their duty still worse than they actually perform it.”

“The establishment of any new manufacture, of any new branch of commerce, or any new practice in agriculture, is always a speculation, from which the projector promises himself extraordinary profits. These profits sometimes are very great, and sometimes, more frequently, perhaps, they are quite otherwise; but in general they bear no regular proportion to those of other older trades in the neighbourhood. If the project succeeds, they are commonly at first very high. When the trade or practice becomes thoroughly established and well known, the competition reduces them to the level of other trades.”

“We are delighted to find a person who values us as we value ourselves, and distinguishes us from the rest of mankind, with an attention not unlike that with which we distinguish ourselves.”

“The real and effectual discipline which is exercised over a workman is that of his customers. It is the fear of losing their employment which restrains his frauds and corrects his negligence.”

“It would be too ridiculous to go about seriously to prove that wealth does not consist in money, or in gold and silver; but in what money purchases, and is valuable only for purchasing. Money no doubt, makes always a part of the national capital; but it has already been shown that it generally makes but a small part, and always the most unprofitable part of it.”

“Secrets in manufactures are capable of being longer kept than secrets in trade.”

“If a workman can conveniently spare those three halfpence, he buys a pot of porter. If he cannot, he contents himself with a pint, and, as a penny saved is a penny got, he thus gains a farthing by his temperance.”

“The tolls for the maintenance of a high road, cannot with any safety be made the property of private persons.”

“The propensity to truck, barter and exchange one thing for another is common to all men and to be found in no other race of animals”

“The greatest improvement in the productive power of labour, and
the greater part of the skill, dexterity, and judgment with which it is
anywhere directed, or applied, seems to have been the effects of
the division of labour.”

“And he stresses that ‘justice’ – not harming others – is fundamental to a
healthy human society”