The Commerce Of Towns Contributed In Adam Smith's Work

This essay is derived from chapter “how the commerce of the towns contributed to the improvement of the country” of Adam Smith Book “Wealth of Nations’ part 3 titled as “The different progress of opulence in different Nations. It was published in 1776. Did Town commerce move shoulder to shoulder with overall progress of the country? Did country could not get developed on their own?. The answers of these questions were given by Adam Smith. Adam Smith claims, for harmonious development of a society equal opportunities should be given to both town and country with balanced foreign trade though this is not only factor but it has its own value in society progress. Going in favor of his claim, Adam Smith presents three major reasons and one of them was that” town commerce encouraged raw material of country to be used by town industry in this way providing a chance to country progress”(first page) but those were merchants who tried to monopolize the market which in turn curbed the whole of progress process likewise old feudal society in which landlords used to drive number of people in individual capacities that ultimately got spoiled .Moreover, he gives a strong analysis of history to strengthen his point of view. Similarly, he provides his readers with the significant importance that how town commerce had co-relation with the development of the country but with controlled mechanism. Below, all these factors are discussed one by in order to check writer’s claim.

Before discussing aforementioned factors, let us have a look on the writer’s life, education and the environmental factors which forced him to claim so. Adam smith is the father of Capitalisms. He was born on 16 June, 1723 in UK. He is a Scottish based moral philosopher. He is also known as father of political Economy. He got education from Glasgow and Oxford University. He used to write on political philosophy, ethics and economics. Wealth of Nation raised his level from an ordinary thinker to famous one. He wrote Wealth of Nations in order to teach the then society the right economic order, and role of the government in leading society. His Book “wealth of Nations” was published in 1776 which gained huge fame and within a short span of time it covered about whole of the Europe. There were numerous environmental factors which forced the writer to dare for writing the true philosophy of economic order. At that mercantilism was in trend. Control of government was stronger on the economic activities of the individuals. Unjustified and heavy taxes were levied from people and were least freedom for economic order. Under these circumstances Adam Smith wrote ‘’wealth of Nations’ to counter the prevailing economic order.

After narrating authorship and environmental factors, now we are taking a historical analysis based on the document. Writer claims, society which does not have any defined proportion of all the progress elements remain unable to taste the fruit of equal development. Giving sound reasoning the writer explains the value of both places and an effective foreign trade system. Moreover, he justifies his claim by creating a long historical analysis of feudal society. To him feudal society could not maintained its identity because there were no manufacturers and traders but feudal only. Feudal have their own serfs community to serve them. This system could not work as it creates dependency. According to writer opinion, systems which have mutual gains maintain survival whereas the systems which remain unable to produce mutual gains got spoiled. It creates dependency as quoted on the third page and second paragraph of examined document” upon authority which the great proprietor necessarily had in such a state of things over their tenants and retainers was found the power of ancient barons” A society which not creates essential things for its survival it got tarnished. Writer points out that for healthy development of progress it is necessary to create a balanced co-relation between agriculture and manufacturing sector side by it should be provided with foreign trade Feudal system got spoiled because of this factor whereas the towns and agrarian could only survive if both are treated equally.

The purpose of the source is to point out that towns contributed a lot in the development of the countryside. Towns are chief hub of commercial activity as they occupy industries and production cells. So in towns money is generated. Wealthy people so called merchants reside in towns, who always think in terms of interests and can gain profit by converting raw stuff into value added products. Moreover, through this manuscript an effort has been made by writer to throw light on the then wrong practicing notion about measuring wealth. At that time most of the merchants were in the view that wealth could be measured in term of coins whereas writer dared to counter this thought suggesting that the right perimeter of measuring wealth was not to count wealth in terms of coins but in terms of using all resources wisely. This resource along with its mother resource helped a lot in putting economy on the sound way and helped governments to decide whether individuals were to be curbed under their control or to allow doing economic activity with least government restrictions.

In the last we can conclude that economic and societal growth cannot be attained unless right laws are not made for efficiency, improvement and productivity .Moreover, town commerce could only elevate the level of country if both are treated on sound grounds It seems that through writing this document Adam Smith wanted to warn the then economic contributors about their monopolistic nature. That is why he created a chain of factors why economy got spoiled in past. For a balanced growth of progress a society should be raised in all contributors: producers of raw material (country), manufacturers and industrial areas. Additionally, Both of these two should be accompanied with foreign trade otherwise it will bring dependency and unequal progress which is not only fatal for time being but also leave long lasting impacts on the development of the whole of society.