Today, in #WealthOfTweets, more rude produce, #AdamSmith's opinions about Scottish Cheese, and, to be perfectly honest, an irresponsible amount of poop. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

The second kind of rude produce is the kind humans can produce more of in response to demand. This includes stuff like sheep, 🐄🐄, and fruits & veg that farm well.(I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
We don’t bother to cultivate this stuff until we reach a certain level of wealth because it reproduces well on its own. But as we get wealthier, we want more stuff and can pay for it, so it’s profitable to herd and farm these things. (I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
But unlike the wild and rare stuff, there’s a limit on the price of this kind of produce, because when the price goes higher, we make more of it, which brings the price back down.(I.xi.l.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
(We also find more profitable uses for, say, the wild grazing land, crowd the sheep out, and then *need* to cultivate them.) (I.xi.l.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweet
🐄🐄 seem to be the first kind of produce for which we can see this take effect. (Just letting you know. Smith loves 🐄🐄 almost as much as he hates monopolies. So many #CowTweets!) (I.xi.l.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And where there’s 🐄🐄 there’s 💩, which is really important because it’s fertilizer. (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
💩 is so important that you’d keep 🐄🐄 in part to get the fertilizer! And notice those poor folks who live too far from busy towns to get 💩 from there, and have to rely on whatever their own 🐄🐄 can provide! (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Amount of 🐄🐄: amount of 💩: amount of cultivated land. And you need the cultivated land to feed the 🐄🐄. It’s all connected. (I.xi.l.3)
https://t.co/kSQXs0C7cC
#CircleOfPoop #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
That’s why 🐄🐄 are such a sign of wealth! They are useful as food, but also as producers of 💩 fertilizer for crops, and the more & better crops you can produce, the more 🐄🐄 you can sustain. (I.xi.l.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
This, says Smith, explains Scotland. (I.xi.l.3) #SomethingMustExplainScotland #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
In new colonies, space is so abundant that it’s not worthwhile to cultivate 🐄🐄. They can just roam free. This is why there will one day be 🐄🐄 on Mars. (I.xi.l.4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
If 🐄🐄 are the first thing that we cultivate like this, venison seems to be among the last. Deer parks are a thing, but they’re a luxury thing. (I.xi.l.6–7) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
You can feed poultry more or less for free, but only up to a certain number. And the land you raise them on might be more profitably used for 🐄🐄. So the price of poultry starts to rise. (I.xi.l.8) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
The price of ANY food animal is highest at the moment right before we start to cultivate land to raise it. That’s WHY we start to cultivate land to raise it. (I.xi.l.8) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Pigs are basically chickens. 🐖🐓🐄💩(I.xi.l.9) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Keeping a dairy starts as a way to use the excess milk from those all-important 🐄🐄. Butter and cheese are ways to store the value of extra milk before it spoils. They are also delicious.(I.xi.l.11) #MmmCheese #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
As world gets wealthier, price of butter and cheese increases and it becomes worthwhile to dedicate serious time, effort, and care to producing them. Also, they are delicious. (I.xi.l.11) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
In Smith’s time, this tipping point had been reached in England, but not yet in Scotland. But look! (I.xi.l.11)
https://t.co/5jUXMxWM0J
#WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
(We, the Smithtweeters, are going to see if we can get some Scottish chefs to tell us about amazing Scottish cheese that #AdamSmith is sorry to have missed.) @chefneilforbes @fredecosse @TomKitchin @AndrewFairlie1 @GordonRamsay @ContiniBites @McTSingh @markgreenaway @nicknairn
You can consider a nation’s land completely cultivated and improved when the price of each of these 2nd sort of produce is so high that it’s worth it to us to cultivate them. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
This, by the way, is why (we nearly forgot!) we're still talking about land and rent! The cultivation and improvement of the land is really important, says Smith, to the economic development of a country. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
“Gain is the end of all improvement.”(I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
But you have to be smart. When the price for a type of produce isn’t high enough, it’s a waste of resources to improve land to cultivate it. Thus our failed TweetFarm. (I.xi.l.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
And just in case you think he’s forgotten, this all connects back to silver. These changes in prices aren’t a change in the value of silver or gold. They’re a change in the supply and demand and real price of the produce. (I.xi.l.13) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets
Tune in tomorrow, when we, the Smithtweeters, try to get you to send us a silver tea set, and reveal the third--yes third!--sort of rude produce. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

More from @AdamSmithWorks

OK. Chapter 7 of Book 4 of #WealthOfNations is tough going. It's long. It's serious. It's all about colonies.

We can take comfort, though, in knowing that the chapter #AdamSmith says is about colonies is, in fact, about colonies. (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets


Colonies were a vexed subject when #AdamSmith was writing, and they’re even more complicated now. So, before we even get to the tweeting, here’s a link to that thread on Smith and “savage nations.” (IV.vii) #WealthOfTweets


The reason for the ancient Greeks and Romans to settle colonies was straightforward: they didn’t have enough space for their growing populations. Their colonies were treated as “emancipated children”—connected but independent. (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(Both these things are in contrast to the European colonies, as we'll see.) (IV.vii.a.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Ancient Greeks and Romans needed more space because the land was owned by an increasingly small number of citizens and farming and nearly all trades and arts were performed by slaves. It was hard for a poor freeman to improve his life. (IV.vii.a.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

More from For later read

You May Also Like