Key Arguments

• After describing the persistence of baronial violence under feudalism, Smith contrasts the impact of commerce: 'But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.'
• He explains the mechanism: 'These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves, without sharing it either with tenants or retainers.'
• He attributes the shift to a universal selfish maxim: '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.'
• Once lords could privatize their surplus, 'as soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons.'
• Smith dramatizes the exchange: 'For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or, what is the same thing, the price of the maintenance of 1000 men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them.'
• Though such luxury goods are trivial in use, they are exclusively owned: 'The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to have any share of them; whereas, in the more ancient method of expense, they must have shared with at least 1000 people.'
• He concludes that 'for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their whole power and authority.'
• Smith contrasts the old and new situations quantitatively: 'In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of £10,000 a-year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, 1000 families, who are all of them necessarily at his command.'
• By contrast, 'In the present state of Europe, a man of £10,000 a-year can spend his whole revenue, and he generally does so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command more than ten footmen, not worth the commanding.'
• Yet the luxury demand still maintains many workers indirectly: 'For though the quantity of precious productions for which he exchanges his whole revenue be very small, the number of workmen employed in collecting and preparing it must necessarily have been very great,' and by 'paying that price, he indirectly pays all those wages and profits.'
• Crucially, because he contributes 'but a very small proportion' to each person’s maintenance—'to a very few, perhaps, not a tenth, to many not a hundredth, and to some not a thousandth, or even a ten thousandth part'—'they are all more or less independent of him, because generally they can all be maintained without him.'
• Thus personal, coercive dependence is replaced by market relations; the proprietor 'indirectly contributes to the maintenance of all the workmen and their employers,' but 'they are all more or less independent of him,' which, together with the third channel earlier mentioned, constitutes the way commerce and manufactures introduce 'liberty and security of individuals' into the countryside.

Source Quotes

They still continued to make war according to their own discretion, almost continually upon one another, and very frequently upon the king; and the open country still continued to be a scene of violence, rapine, and disorder. But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves, without sharing it either with tenants or retainers.

But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about. These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves, without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. 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.

These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves, without sharing it either with tenants or retainers. 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. As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons.

As soon, therefore, as they could find a method of consuming the whole value of their rents themselves, they had no disposition to share them with any other persons. For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or, what is the same thing, the price of the maintenance of 1000 men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them. The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to have any share of them; whereas, in the more ancient method of expense, they must have shared with at least 1000 people.

The buckles, however, were to be all their own, and no other human creature was to have any share of them; whereas, in the more ancient method of expense, they must have shared with at least 1000 people. With the judges that were to determine the preference, this difference was perfectly decisive; and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their whole power and authority. In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of £10,000 a-year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, 1000 families, who are all of them necessarily at his command.

In a country where there is no foreign commerce, nor any of the finer manufactures, a man of £10,000 a-year cannot well employ his revenue in any other way than in maintaining, perhaps, 1000 families, who are all of them necessarily at his command. In the present state of Europe, a man of £10,000 a-year can spend his whole revenue, and he generally does so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command more than ten footmen, not worth the commanding. Indirectly, perhaps, he maintains as great, or even a greater number of people, than he could have done by the ancient method of expense.

He generally contributes, however, but a very small proportion to that of each; to a very few, perhaps, not a tenth, to many not a hundredth, and to some not a thousandth, or even a ten thousandth part of their whole annual maintenance. Though he contributes, therefore, to the maintenance of them all, they are all more or less independent of him, because generally they can all be maintained without him. When the great proprietors of land spend their rents in maintaining their tenants and retainers, each of them maintains entirely

Key Concepts

• But what all the violence of the feudal institutions could never have effected, the silent and insensible operation of foreign commerce and manufactures gradually brought about.
• These gradually furnished the great proprietors with something for which they could exchange the whole surplus produce of their lands, and which they could consume themselves, without sharing it either with tenants or retainers.
• 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.
• For a pair of diamond buckles, perhaps, or for something as frivolous and useless, they exchanged the maintenance, or, what is the same thing, the price of the maintenance of 1000 men for a year, and with it the whole weight and authority which it could give them.
• and thus, for the gratification of the most childish, the meanest, and the most sordid of all vanities they gradually bartered their whole power and authority.
• In the present state of Europe, a man of £10,000 a-year can spend his whole revenue, and he generally does so, without directly maintaining twenty people, or being able to command more than ten footmen, not worth the commanding.
• Though he contributes, therefore, to the maintenance of them all, they are all more or less independent of him, because generally they can all be maintained without him.

Context

Later portion of Book III, Chapter IV, where Smith returns to the 'third and last' way commerce and manufactures improve the country—by transforming elite consumption, dissolving feudal dependence, and thereby undercutting the private military and judicial power of the aristocracy in favour of a more impersonal, law‑governed social order.