Knowledge is power

What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted labour--Competition of unskilled labour--Competition of uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of organi...

Lord Bacon, the great master of practical wisdom, has said that "the effort to extend the dominion of man over nature is the most healthy and most noble of all ambitions." "The...

The beaver builds his huts with the tools which nature has given him. He gnaws pieces of wood in two with his sharp teeth, so sharp that the teeth of a similar animal, the agout...

Dr. William Bulleyn, who lived three centuries ago, first gave currency to the saying, that great riches were "like muckhills, a burthen to the land, and offensive to the inhabi...

Those who have not taken the trouble to witness, or to inquire into, the processes by which they are surrounded with the conveniences and comforts of civilized life, can have no...

The art of printing offers one of the readiest and most forcible illustrations of the advantages that have been bestowed upon the world by scientific discovery and by mechanical...

We have thus, without pretending to any approach to completeness, taken a rapid view of many of the great branches of industry in this country. We have exhibited capital working...

Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry-- The _principle_...

We drew attention in the last chapter to a particular process in needle-making--the sorter's sheath--to show that great saving of labour may be effected by what is not popularly...

We have been speaking somewhat fully of agricultural instruments and agricultural labour, because they are at the root of all other profitable industry. Bread and beef make the...

Natural law of wages--State-laws regulating wages--Enactments regulating consumption--The labour-fund and the want-fund--Ratio of capital to population--State of industry at the...

Before the invention of the first stocking-machine, in the year 1589, by William Lee, a clergyman, none but the very rich wore stockings, and many of the most wealthy went witho...

There was a time when the people of England were very inferior to those of the Low Countries, of France, and of Germany, in various productions of manufacturing industry. We fir...

We have seen how by machinery more than thirty-five million tons of coal--now become one of the very first necessaries of life--are obtained, which without machinery could not b...

Possessions of the different classes in England--Condition of Colchester in 1301--Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.--Supply of food--Comparative duration of human life--Want...

Adventures of John Tanner--Habits of the American Indians--Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of division of labour--Evils of irregul...

It is satisfactory to observe that the increase of houses has kept pace with the increase of population. In 1801, in Great Britain, there was a population of ten million five hu...

There is an old proverb, that "When two men ride on one horse, one man must ride behind." Capital and Labour are, as we think, destined to perform a journey together to the end...

Adam Smith, in his great work, 'The Wealth of Nations,' says, "The property which every man has in his own labour, as it is the original foundation of all other property, so it...

obliged to maintain himself and his dependents by adding something considerable to his means by many forms of legalized extortion. The rent of land was so low because the produc...

There is an account in Foster's Essays of a man who, having by a short career of boundless extravagance dissipated every shilling of a large estate which he inherited from his f...

Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for trade--...

Two of the most terrific famines that are recorded in the history of the world occurred in Egypt--a country where there is greater production, with less labour, than is probably...

Let us suppose a man brought up in civilized life, cast upon a desert land--without food, without clothes, without fire, without tools. We see the human being in the very lowest...

Society, both in its rudest form and in its most refined and complicated relations, is nothing but a system of Exchanges. An exchange is a transaction in which both the parties...

What political economy teaches--Skilled labour and trusted labour--Competition of unskilled labour--Competition of uncapitalled labour--Itinerant traders--The contrast of organi...

Present and former condition of the country--Progress of cultivation--Evil influence of feudalism--State of agriculture in the sixteenth century--Modern improvements--Prices of...

Importance of capital to the profitable employment of labour--Contrast between the prodigal and the prudent man: the Dukes of Buckingham and Bridgewater--Making good for trade--...

Employment of machinery in manufactures and agriculture--Erroneous notions formerly prevalent on this subject--Its advantages to the labourer--Spade-husbandry--The principle of...

Present and former condition of the country--Progress of cultivation--Evil influence of feudalism--State of agriculture in the sixteenth century--Modern improvements--Prices of...

Possessions of the different classes in England--Condition of Colchester in 1301--Tools, stock-in-trade, furniture, &c.--Supply of food--Comparative duration of human life--Want...

Adventures of John Tanner--Habits of the American Indians--Their sufferings from famine, and from the absence among them of the principle of division of labour--Evils of irregul...

Natural law of wages--State-laws regulating wages--Enactments regulating consumption--The labour-fund and the want-fund--Ratio of capital to population--State of industry at the...

Influences of knowledge in the direction of labour and capital--Astronomy: Chronometer--Mariner's compass-- Scientific travellers--New materials of manufactures-- India-rubber--...

Feeble resources of civilized man in a desert--Ross Cox, Peter the Wild Boy, and the Savage of Aveyron--A Moskito Indian on Juan Fernandez--Conditions necessary for the producti...

The Prodigal--Advantages of the poorest man in civilized life over the richest savage--Savings-banks, deposits, and interest--Progress of accumulation--Insecurity of capital, it...