The Wealth of Nations
IV. Introduction
Section summary
A two-paragraph introduction to Book IV. Smith defines political economy as a branch of the statesman’s science with two aims: to enable the people to provide themselves with a plentiful revenue, and to provide the state with a revenue for public services. He announces that he will examine the two systems that have claimed to enrich the people, the system of commerce (the mercantile system) and the system of agriculture (the Physiocrats), beginning with the first.
Book IV. Of Systems of Political Economy
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.
The different progress of opulence in different ages and nations, has given occasion to two different systems of political economy, with regard to enriching the people. The one may be called the system of commerce, the other that of agriculture. I shall endeavour to explain both as fully and distinctly as I can, and shall begin with the system of commerce. It is the modern system, and is best understood in our own country and in our own times.