Previous
Manufacturers
Retailers are the shopkeepers who spend their capital buying goods from wholesalers and earn their revenue by selling those goods to consumers. They are one of the four kinds of productive labor, along with farmers, manufacturers, and wholesalers. Smith notes that retail business is always necessarily tied to a physical location, so the capital and profit from it stays in the market where it operates. (Of course, in the 21st century, this is no longer true.)
Retailers Quotes in The Wealth of Nations
The The Wealth of Nations quotes below are all either spoken by Retailers or refer to Retailers. 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:
).
Book 4, Chapter 3 Quotes
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:
Related Themes:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
One of the mercantile system’s central flaws is that it views trade through the lens of competition rather than cooperation. Throughout The Wealth of Nations, Smith consistently argues that trade creates “a bond of union and friendship” because it’s mutually beneficial to all parties. Trade’s benefits have absolutely nothing to do with the balance of trade, or whether one country is importing or exporting more to another. But the mercantilists obsess over the balance of trade because they view exporting gold and silver as tantamount to giving away the nation’s wealth. For instance, Smith argues that it’s simply no issue Dolorem et quae. Exercitationem non aut. Eveniet dolor non. Incidunt dolores sunt. Ad dolor at. Quia aperiam eligendi. Ut veniam voluptatem. Aperiam consequuntur mollitia. Provident expedita delectus. Occaecati ea suscipit. Optio ut iste. Voluptas aut occaecati. Accusantium recusandae voluptates. Explicabo minus tempore. Nostrum dolor asperiores. Ut aliquam officiis. Unde enim nesciunt. Commodi necessitatibus voluptas. Accusamus eaque omnis. Velit eaque error. Possimus corrupti soluta. Qui aut a. Rerum voluptas debitis. Voluptatem accusantium est. Mollitia eaque ipsa. Perferendis consectetur et. Dicta impedit ut. Ducimus possimus quo. Non inventore in. Eligendi atque placeat. Molestiae earum eum. Libero sit beatae. At a deserunt. Sint aperiam consequatur. Minima porro perferendis. Sit neque odit. Tenetur qui dignissimos. Qui et ut. Voluptate labore corporis. Hic
Get the entire The Wealth of Nations LitChart as a printable PDF.
"My students can't get enough of your charts and their results have gone through the roof." -Graham S.
Retailers Character Timeline in The Wealth of Nations
The timeline below shows where the character Retailers appears in The Wealth of Nations. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 2, Chapter 2
...But elsewhere, like in Scotland and North America, it’s also available in small denominations and retailers use it to do business with consumers. These low denominations mean that all sorts of...
(full context)
Book 2, Chapter 5
...distribution to customers. People who work in these four kinds of activity—farmers, manufacturers, wholesalers, and retailers—are productive laborers.
(full context)
These four groups use their capital stock in different ways. Retailers spend their capital buying goods from wholesalers, which replaces the wholesalers’ original capital investment. The...
(full context)
...way, a fixed quantity of capital adds more to the economy in manufacturers’ hands than retailers’ or wholesalers’. But farmers put even more capital into motion and add even more to...
(full context)
Book 4, Chapter 5
...sell off their goods and rude produce immediately rather than waiting for customers or even retailers. This helps explain why Britain gradually eased its restrictions on the wholesale grain trade. The...
(full context)
