Adam Smith: An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Book IV, Chapter III (part II): "The sneaking arts of underling tradesmen are thus erected into political maxims for the conduct of a great empire ... . By such maxims as these, however, nations have been taught that their interest consisted in beggaring all their neighbours. Each nation has been made to look with an invidious eye upon the prosperity of all the nations with which it trades, and to consider their gain as its own loss. Commerce, which ought naturally to be, among nations, as among individuals, a bond of union and friendship, has become the most fertile source of discord and animosity."
