(^296) THE WEALTH AND POVERTY OF NATIONS
geographical explanation, one that links natural circumstances to cul
ture and institutions.^3 The argument here is that geography dictates
crops and the mode of cultivation, hence the nature of land tenure and
the distribution of wealth; while these in turn are critical to the pace
and character of development. Where society is divided between a priv
ileged few landowners and a large mass of poor, dependent, perhaps
unfree laborers—in effect, between a school for laziness (or self-
indulgence) over against a slough of despond—what the incentive to
change and improve? At the top, a lofty indifference; below, the resig
nation of despair. Now and then, resistance breaks out and gives the
elites and their soldiers opportunity to practice the martial arts; while
religion offers the consolation of a better world after death.
This was not the case in the northern United States, nor in Canada
alongside. They had the paradoxical advantage of a climate that limited
cultivation to grains and yielded little at first in the way of an exportable
surplus. Economies of scale were negligible, at least before the inven
tion of mechanical technologies, so that holdings were small, often no
larger than subsistence, and more or less evenly distributed.* Such
equality did not always please those of aristocratic inclinations. In
1765, a British visitor to New England, Lord Adam Gordon, frowned
his disapproval: "... the levelling principle here, everywhere, operates
strongly and takes the lead. Everybody has property, and everybody
knows it."^4
In addition, quasi-free land and scarce labor made for high wages
and hard recruitment in both country and town, as Adam Smith ob
served:
... the disproportion between the great extent of the land and the small
number of the people, which commonly takes place in new colonies, makes
it difficult for him [the proprietor] to get this labour. He does not, there
fore, dispute about wages, but is willing to employ labour at any price.
The high wages of labour encourage population. The cheapness and plenty
of good land encourage improvement, and enable the proprietor to pay
those high wages.^5
- This was particularly true of New England. In the Middle Atiantic colonies—New
York and Pennsylvania in particular—one found larger commercial farms, producing
for distant markets. See Fischer, Albion's Seed, pp. 174, 377-78, 567, who points out
that the differences in landholding reflected not so much geographical circumstances
as the circumstances of origin in the Old World and the consequent intentions of the
settlers.