266 ADAM SMITH. 



subsistence ; yet neither of them are necessary ; for if all 

 comfort and enjoyment be kept out of view, vegetables and 

 water would suffice for the support of life ; and by this 

 mode of reasoning the epithet of productive would be limited 

 to the sort of employment that raises the species of food 

 which each climate and soil is fitted to yield in greatest 

 abundance, with the least labour ; to the culture of maize 

 in some countries ; of rice in others ; of potatoes, or yams, 

 or the bread-fruit tree in others . and in no country would 

 any variation of employment whatever be consistent with 

 the definition. According to this view of the question, 

 therefore, the menial servant, the judge, the soldier and the 

 buffoon, are to be ranked in the same class with the hus- 

 bandman and manfacturers of every civilised community. 

 The produce of the labour is, in all these cases, calculated 

 to supply either the necessities, the comforts, or the luxur- 

 ies of society ; and that nation has more real wealth than 

 another, which possesses more of all those commodities. If 

 this is not admitted, then we can compare the two countries 

 only in respect of their relative shares of articles indispen- 

 sably requisite, and produced in greatest abundance, con- 

 sidering the soil and climate of each : and, as nothing which 

 is not necessary is to be reckoned valuable, a nation wal- 

 lowing in all manner of comforts and enjoyments is to be 

 deemed no richer than a horde fed upon the smallest portion 

 of the cheapest grain, or roots and water, which is sufficient 

 to support human life. 



But it is maintained that, admitting the wealth of a com- 

 munity to be augmented by the labour of those whom Dr. 

 Smith denominates unproductive, still they are in a different 

 predicament from the productive class, inasmuch as they do 

 not augment the exchangeable value of any separate por- 

 tions of the society's stock neither increasing the quantity 

 of that stock, nor adding to the value of what formerlv 

 existed. To this, however, it may be replied that it ap- 

 pears of very little consequence whether the wants of the 

 community are supplied directly by men, or mediately by 

 men with the intervention of matter whether we receive 

 certain benefits and conveniences from those men at once, 

 or only in the form of inanimate and disposable substances. 

 Dr. Smith would admit that labour to be productive which 



