World Lit Reader

The Wealth of Nations · Adam Smith

Book 5

Chapter 2: Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society

Book 5, Chapter 2: Of the Sources of the General or Public Revenue of the Society

The revenue which must defray, not only the expense of defending the society and of supporting the dignity of the chief magistrate, but all the other necessary expenses of government, for which the constitution of the state has not provided any particular revenue may be drawn, either, first, from some fund which peculiarly belongs to the sovereign or commonwealth, and which is independent of the revenue of the people; or, secondly, from the revenue of the people.

Adam Smith. Digital source: Project Gutenberg, ebook 3300. This reading text follows the edition used in our interactive reader.

The five books retain the corpus’s divisions into chapters, parts, and digressions. Twenty-eight numerical table blocks have their source columns and line breaks restored; wide tables can be scrolled horizontally.