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Subsistence is the level consumption needed to meet basic survival needs, with no luxury goods or economic surplus.
Subsistence Quotes in The Wealth of Nations
The The Wealth of Nations quotes below are all either spoken by Subsistence or refer to Subsistence. For each quote, you can also see the other terms and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Book 3, Chapter 1
Quotes
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.
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Book 4, Introduction
Quotes
Political economy, considered as a branch of the science of a statesman or legislator, proposes two distinct objects; first, to provide a plentiful revenue or subsistence for the people, or, more properly, to enable them to provide such a revenue or subsistence for themselves; and, secondly, to supply the state or commonwealth with a revenue sufficient for the public services. It proposes to enrich both the people and the sovereign.
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Subsistence Term Timeline in The Wealth of Nations
The timeline below shows where the term Subsistence appears in The Wealth of Nations. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Book 1, Chapter 8
...usually unsuccessful. But masters cannot get away with paying workers less than the cost of subsistence for them and their families.
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Wages are clearly above the subsistence minimum in Britain. After all, workers get paid more in summer even though subsistence costs...
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Still, provision prices still do affect wages because they help determine the cost of subsistence. But this effect counterbalances the changing demand for labor: in a cheap year, the increased...
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Book 1, Chapter 9
At the highest possible rates of profit, all revenue except workers’ subsistence-level wages go to profit. In Smith’s Britain, ordinary market profit rates are about double interest...
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Book 1, Chapter 10
...go through an apprenticeship. During this time, someone else needs to pay for the worker’s subsistence, and everything they produce goes to their master. In contrast, country laborers usually learn on...
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Book 1, Chapter 11
...their tenants can afford, which is everything the land produces, minus the tenant’s cost of subsistence. They charge rent even for infertile or unimproved land, and rent prices aren’t proportional to...
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Book 4, Chapter 5
...prices, however, it reduces the real price of silver. Since grain is the basis for subsistence, nominal grain prices also regulate the nominal price of almost everything else, including labor, rude...
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Book 4, Chapter 9
...contribute to the national revenue if they earn less in wages than they need for subsistence. Yet they perform an important function by selling rude produce and supplying people with manufactured...
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Book 5, Chapter 2
Taxes on necessities raise the price of subsistence, so wages must rise to compensate for the difference. Taxes on luxuries deter people who...
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