Understanding the #UnitedStatesofAmerica - The Wealth of Nations: Book One, Chapter Eleven (Part Six) "Different Effects of the Progress of Improvement on Three Sorts of Rude Product - The First Sort"
BOOK I
CHAPTER ELEVEN: OF THE RENT OF LAND
Pages: 58 (Pages 30 to 31)
PART 3: VARIATIONS IN THE PROPORTIONS BETWEEN THE RESPECTIVE VALUES OF THE TWO SORTS OF PRODUCT
[Smith here starts a very long and learned ‘Digression concerning the Variations in the value of Silver during the Course of the Four last Centuries’. It is omitted here.]
DIFFERENT EFFECTS OF THE PROGRESS OF IMPROVEMENT ON
THREE SORTS OF RUDE PRODUCT
Pg 151
These sorts of rude product may be divided into three classes: (1) those which it is hardly in the power of human industry to multiply at all, (2) those which it can multiply in proportion to the demand, and (3) those in which the effectiveness of ·human· industry is either limited or uncertain. In the progress of wealth and improvement, the real price of (1) may rise to any level of extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. The price of (2) may rise greatly but has a certain boundary beyond which it can’t cross for any considerable period of time. The natural tendency of the price of (3) is to rise in the progress of improvement, but with the same level of improvement it may sometimes fall, sometimes to continue the same, and sometimes rise more or less, depending on how different events make the efforts of human industry in multiplying this sort of rude product more or less successful.
THE FIRST SORT
The first sort of rude product, of which the price rises in the progress of improvement, is the sort that it’s hardly in the power of human industry to multiply at all. It consists in things that nature produces only in certain quantities, and that are very perishable so that it’s impossible to accumulate the product of many different seasons. Such are most rare and singular birds and fishes, many sorts of game, almost all wild-fowl, all birds of passage in particular, as well as many other things.
Pg 152
When wealth, and the luxury that accompanies it, increase, the demand for these is likely to increase also, and no human effort may be able to increase the supply much beyond what it was before the demand went up. With their quantity remaining about the same while the competition to purchase them continually increases, their price may rise to any level of extravagance, and seems not to be limited by any certain boundary. If woodcocks became so fashionable as to sell for twenty guineas each, no effort of human industry could increase much the number of them brought to market. The high price the Romans paid for rare birds and fishes in the time of their greatest grandeur is easy to explain in this way. These prices were not the effects of the low value of silver in those times, but of the high value of rarities and curiosities that human industry couldn’t multiply at pleasure. The real value of silver was higher at Rome, for some time before and after the fall of the republic, than it is through most of Europe at present. [Smith goes at some length into his evidence for this statement.]
You can read Volume I the Wealth of Nations for yourself here → https://www.earlymoderntexts.com/assets/pdfs/smith1776_1.pdf