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They say nothing concerning the bad effects of high profits; they

are silent with regard to the pernicious effects of their own

gains; they complain only of those of other people.

CHAPTER X. OF WAGES AND PROFIT IN THE DIFFERENT EMPLOYMENTS OF

LABOUR AND STOCK.

The whole of the advantages and disadvantages of the different

employments of labour and stock, must, in the same neighbourhood,

be either perfectly equal, or continually tending to equality.

If, in the same neighbourhood, there was any employment evidently

either more or less advantageous than the rest, so many people

would crowd into it in the one case, and so many would desert it

in the other, that its advantages would soon return to the level

of other employments. This, at least, would be the case in a

society where things were left to follow their natural course,

where there was perfect liberty, and where every man was

perfectly free both to choose what occupation he thought proper,

and to change it as often as he thought proper. Every man's

interest would prompt him to seek the advantageous, and to shun

the disadvantageous employment.