Abstract
Adam Smith, who criticized mercantilists fot their wrong concept of the wealth of nations, considered that the real wealth is the annual produce of the land and labour of the society (Smith [1976], p. 12). According to Smith, furthermore, the high productivity of labour in civilized and thriving nations seems to have been the effects of the division of labour. International trade certainly pre-supposes the division of labour among different countries. As for the nature and causes of international trade, therefore, we can expect to learn very much from Smith’s theory of the divisions of labour. For this purpose, let us have a glance of the content of his Wealth of Nations (1776), which consists of five Books, i.e.,
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Book 1:
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.
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Book 2:
Of the Nature, Accumulation, and Employment of Stock.
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Book 3:
Of the different Progress of Opulence in different Nations.
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Book 4:
Of Systems of political Oeconomy.
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Book 5:
Of the Revenue of the Sovereign or Commonwealth.
An outline of each Book now follows.
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Negishi, T. (2001). Adam Smith and Division of Labour. In: Developments of International Trade Theory. Research Monographs in Japan-U.S. Business & Economics, vol 6. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4959-5_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4757-4959-5_3
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