Note 179-7 — Chapter IV

Adam Smith, I, ch. 10, 1: where the reasons why a shop-keeper in a small town apparently gets a larger interest than one in a large city, and yet gets rich less frequently, are developed. The high profit made from industrial secrets, Adam Smith very correctly considers wages (I, ch. 7). Why not also that made by inn-keepers? (I, ch. 10, 1.) When the returns of a business differ according to circumstances which depend on the person of the conductor of the business himself, and may by him be transferred into another business, etc.; when the competition in it is determined by personal agreeableness or disagreeableness, it is evident that the larger returns are to be ascribed rather to the highness of wages than of the rate of interest. The profit also which a second-hand hirer makes is wages. (Riedel, Nat. Oek., 376.)