The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them.
 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (1776). copy citation

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Author Adam Smith
Source The Wealth of Nations
Topic struggle commodity
Date 1776
Language English
Reference An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Note
Weblink http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3300/3300-h/3300-h.htm

Context

“In every period of its duration its whole capital and industry might still have been employed, though upon different objects, in the manner that was most advantageous at the time. In every period its revenue might have been the greatest which its capital could afford, and both capital and revenue might have been augmented with the greatest possible rapidity. The natural advantages which one country has over another, in producing particular commodities, are sometimes so great, that it is acknowledged by all the world to be in vain to struggle with them. By means of glasses, hot-beds, and hot-walls, very good grapes can be raised in Scotland, and very good wine, too, can be made of them, at about thirty times the expense for which at least equally good can be brought from foreign countries.” source