Smith (1974, p. 115), was that workmen "were enabled to exchange a great quantity of his own goods for a great quantity, or, what comes to the same thing, for the price of a great quantity" of other workers' products.
Smith (1974, p. 117) also made the case that when one considers all the inventions of the Industrial Revolution that improved the quality of life for the poor and working class as well as the wealthy, "we shall be sensible that, without the assistance and cooperation of many thousands, the very meanest person in a civilized country could not be provided" with the necessities of life. The division of labor, in the view of Smith (1974), gave rise to numerous advantages and was in many ways a slow and gradual consequence of a propensity in human nature that leads to bartering of one item for another. Unlike animals, Smith (1974) considered human society to have become over time, a cooperative endeavor. As Smith (1974, p. 118) wrote, "in civilized society he (man) stands at all time in need of the cooperation and assistance of great multitudes."
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