Project Gutenberg #3300
The Wealth of Nations
Adam Smith
1776Smith's political economy classic, prepared chapter by chapter from Project Gutenberg HTML for vocabulary-focused reading.
Project Gutenberg #3300 Public domain in the United States Cover source Local typographic cover created for MojiMori from public-domain source metadata
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AI Summary
Book IV, Chapter V: Of Bounties Central question Why are export bounties economically misleading? Main argument Smith criticizes bounties because they reward exporters at public expense while encouraging...
of the others.
So far this law seems evidently an improvement upon the ancient system.
But by the same law, a bounty of 2s. the quarter is given for the exportation of oats, whenever the price does not exceed fourteen shillings. No bounty had ever been given before for the exportation of this grain, no more than for that of pease or beans.
By the same law, too, the exportation of wheat is prohibited so soon as the price rises to forty-four shillings the quarter; that of rye so soon as it rises to twenty-eight shillings; that of barley so soon as it rises to twenty-two shillings; and that of oats so soon as they rise to fourteen shillings. Those several prices seem all of them a good deal too low; and there seems to be an impropriety, besides, in prohibiting exportation altogether at those precise prices at which that bounty, which was given in order to force it, is withdrawn. The bounty ought certainly either to have been withdrawn at a much lower price, or exportation ought to have been allowed at a much higher.
So far, therefore, this law seems to be inferior to the ancient system. With all its imperfections, however, we may perhaps say of it what was said of the laws of Solon, that though not the best in itself, it is the best which the interest, prejudices, and temper of the times, would admit of. It may perhaps in due time prepare the way for a better.