Producing the rest of the workman’s attire, and his tools, home, furniture and utensils, similarly required vast interconnected industries. To accommodate the labourer’s simple needs, Smith observed, required an amount of cooperation that “exceeds all computation.” Smith took as his prime example the labourer’s plain woollen coat, which, “as coarse and rough as it may appear, is the produce of the joint labour of a great multitude of workmen.” Smith enumerated all the parts of the wool industry, all the merchants and carriers, all the elaborate machinery-from ships and mills to looms and furnaces-that would have been involved. Smith’s most important indirect reference lies in his example of how the market provides for even the most humble labourer.
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