Excerpt from The Works of Adam Smith, LL. D, Vol. 2 of 5: With an Account of His Life and Writings

To take an example, therefore, from a very trifling manufacture; but one in which the divi fion of labour has been very often taken notice of, the trade of the pin-maker; a workman not educated to this bufinefs (which the divifion of labour has rendered a diftinét trade), nor ac quainted with the ufe of the machinery employed in it (to the invention of which the fame divi fion of labour has probably given occafion), could fcarce, perhaps, with his utmoit indufiry, make one pin in a day, and certainly could not make twenty. But in the way in which this bufinefs is now carried on, not only the whole work is a peculiar trade, but it is divided into a number of branches, of which the greater part. Are likewife peculiar trades. One man draws out the wire, another {traights it, a third cuts it, a fourth points it, a fifth grinds it at the top for receiving the head; to make the head requires.

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