ASWN #2118 THE WEALTH OF NATIONS

http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Wealth_of_Nations - such halfyearly or yearly dividend as the directors think proper to make to them. This total exemption from trouble and from risk, beyond a limited sum, encourages many people to become adventurers in joint stock companies, who would, upon no account, hazard their fortunes in any private copartnery. Such companies, therefore, commonly draw to themselves much greater stocks than any private copartnery can boast of. The trading stock of the South Sea Company, at one time, amounted to upwards of thirty-three millions eight hundred thousand pounds. The divided capital of the Bank of England amounts, at present, to ten millions seven hundred and eighty thousand pounds. The directors of such companies, however, being the G.ed. p741 The Wealth of Nations Adam Smith managers rather of other peoples money than of their own, it cannot well be expected that