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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:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
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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:
Page Number and Citation:
Explanation and Analysis:
