Manufacturers Character Analysis in The Wealth of Nations

Manufacturers are people who turn agricultural raw materials (rude produce) into finished goods for others to use or consume. Compared to the other three kinds of productive laborers, they add more value than wholesalers and retailers, but less than farmers. Their businesses typically require significant investments in both fixed capital (factories and instruments of trade) and circulating capital (materials of manufacture). For the purposes of his analysis, Smith also treats artisans, tradespeople, and other smalltime producers as manufacturers.

Manufacturers Quotes in The Wealth of Nations

The The Wealth of Nations quotes below are all either spoken by Manufacturers or refer to Manufacturers. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture, but one in which the division of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of a pin-maker: a workman not educated to this business (which the division of labour has rendered a distinct trade), nor acquainted with the use of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the same division of labour has probably given occasion), could scarce, perhaps, with his utmost industry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this business is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part are likewise peculiar trades. [...] The important business of making a pin is, in this manner, divided into about eighteen distinct operations.

Related Characters: Manufacturers

Related Symbols: The Pin Factory

Page Number and Citation: 11

Explanation and Analysis:

The inhabitants of the town, and those of the country, are mutually the servants of one another. The town is a continual fair or market, to which the inhabitants of the country resort, in order to exchange their rude for manufactured produce. It is this commerce which supplies the inhabitants of the town, both with the materials of their work, and the means of their subsistence. The quantity of the finished work which they sell to the inhabitants of the country, necessarily regulates the quantity of the materials and provisions which they buy. Neither their employment nor subsistence, therefore, can augment, but in proportion to the augmentation of the demand from the country for finished work; and this demand can augment only in proportion to the extension of improvement and cultivation.

Related Characters: Farmers, Manufacturers

Page Number and Citation: 484

Explanation and Analysis:

Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity. The capricious ambition of kings and ministers has not, during the present and the preceding century, been more fatal to the repose of Europe, than the impertinent jealousy of merchants and manufacturers. The violence and injustice of the rulers of mankind is an ancient evil, for which, I am afraid, the nature of human affairs can scarce admit of a remedy: but the mean rapacity, the monopolizing spirit, of merchants and manufacturers, who neither are, nor ought to be, the rulers of mankind, though it cannot, perhaps, be corrected, may very easily be prevented from disturbing the tranquillity of anybody but themselves.

Related Characters: Wholesalers, Retailers, Manufacturers

Page Number and Citation: 621

Explanation and Analysis:

Manufacturers Character Timeline in The Wealth of Nations

The timeline below shows where the character Manufacturers appears in The Wealth of Nations. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

...which takes the form of education. For instance, in Europe, skilled tradespeople (“mechanics, artificers, and manufacturers”) must first go through an apprenticeship. During this time, someone else needs to pay for... (full context)

...circulating capital stock also has four parts: money, merchants’ unsold provisions, unused raw materials, and manufacturers’ finished but unsold products. (full context)

...object it acts upon, and some labor is unproductive because it does not. For instance, manufacturers’ labor is productive because it adds value to the things it creates, which can then... (full context)

Institutions and Good Governance Theme Icon

...smaller portions for distribution to customers. People who work in these four kinds of activity—farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers—are productive laborers. (full context)

...nation is equal to their profits. Wholesalers spend their capital buying goods from farmers and manufacturers. In the process, they replace those farmers’ and manufacturers’ initial capital, and their businesses add... (full context)

Manufacturers use their capital to buy the instruments (fixed capital) and materials (circulating capital) that they... (full context)

...locations. While wholesalers’ capital can go anywhere, it doesn’t much affect a country’s annual produce. Manufacturers’ capital goes into their production facilities, which they can choose where to locate. As this... (full context)

...paying steep taxes to the government. These policies make farming an undesirable profession and dissuade manufacturers and wholesalers from shifting their capital into agriculture. So do rules against grain exportation and... (full context)

...few thousand dependent people, such landlords began indirectly supporting a far higher number of laborers, manufacturers, and traders, most of them overseas. To increase the surplus they could trade for manufactured... (full context)

...foreign trade consists of manufactured goods, which are easier to transport, import restrictions mainly enrich manufacturers and merchants. The effect is much smaller for rude produce. For instance, massive cattle, salt,... (full context)

Unfortunately, Britain will never really establish free trade because monopolist manufacturers have too much money, power, and influence over Parliament. When their businesses fail, these manufacturers... (full context)

Manufacturers and traders often petition the government to support exports. Drawbacks, or tax refunds, are desirable... (full context)

Another way that manufacturers and wholesale merchants request support from the government is by requesting subsidies, or bounties, for... (full context)

...prices for domestic consumers. But due to the mercantile system’s focus on international trade and manufacturers’ desire to keep domestic prices high, the government has rarely offered bounties for production. (full context)

...considered drawbacks, even though they are often wrongly called bounties. And prizes offered to extraordinary manufacturers and artisans are not bounties: they encourage better production techniques instead of changing “the natural... (full context)

...grain trading, which forced farmers to sell their grain directly to consumers, but also banned manufacturers from selling their goods, which forced them to turn to merchants. But due to the... (full context)

In reality, wholesale merchants support farmers and manufacturers by permitting them to specialize, invest all their capital in efficient production, and sell off... (full context)

Commercial treaties that privilege imports from a specific country benefit that country’s wholesalers and manufacturers, but harm those of the importing country by exposing them to greater competition and forcing... (full context)

...with Portugal and the exclusive trade policies with the colonies, really just support merchants and manufacturers at consumers’ expense. (full context)

...agriculture. The agriculturalists divide people into three groups: landlords, farmers (or the “productive class”), and manufacturers and merchants (or the “unproductive class”). Agriculture requires landlords to invest in improving their land,... (full context)

The agricultural system treats artisans, manufacturers, and merchants as having zero overall impact on society’s annual revenue. They generate some revenue... (full context)

...of the productive agricultural nations. Such agricultural nations benefit from free trade, which enables their manufacturers to improve, compete, and ultimately offer better and better goods for lower and lower prices.... (full context)

...the real price of their land’s rude produce. Second, they give a monopoly to domestic manufacturers and merchants, whose profit rates rise. This draws capital away from agriculture at a stage... (full context)

The agricultural system is wrong to call artisans, manufacturers, and merchants unproductive. Even if they don’t produce a surplus like farmers, they still generate... (full context)

...system is still the most accurate theory of political economy. It wrongly views merchants and manufacturers as unproductive workers, but it rightly defines a society’s wealth as the total product of... (full context)

Paying soldiers becomes necessary as societies progress in manufacturing and warfighting. Manufacturers and artisans work year-round and stop earning revenue if they go to fight in a... (full context)

...these costs on to either farmers (if they’re investing in land) or consumers (if they’re manufacturers). (full context)

...Import duties on other goods don't raise much revenue for the government—they just protect British manufacturers. If these duties are maintained, they should be designed to raise revenue, without reducing consumption... (full context)

...customs system without losing any revenue. Indeed, free trade for most goods would benefit merchants, manufacturers, and consumers. But Sir Robert Walpole failed when he tried to impose such a system... (full context)

...producers, who will simply raise prices and pass along the tax burden, like any other manufacturer. Indeed, since total beer and ale taxes will fall, the new system will probably increase... (full context)

Merchants and manufacturers will lend this money to the sovereign because they generally have access to lots of... (full context)

The Wealth of Nations

Manufacturers Character Analysis

Manufacturers Quotes in The Wealth of Nations

Book 1, Chapter 1 Quotes

Book 3, Chapter 1 Quotes

Book 4, Chapter 3 Quotes

Manufacturers Character Timeline in The Wealth of Nations