“Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to”

— Adam Smith

Source: The Wealth of Nations (1776), Book IV, Chapter I, p. 481.
Context: The commodities of Europe were almost all new to America, and many of those of America were new to Europe. A new set of exchanges, therefore, began.. and which should naturally have proved as advantageous to the new, as it certainly did to the old continent. The savage injustice of the Europeans rendered an event, which ought to have been beneficial to all, ruinous and destructive to several of those unfortunate countries.

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Adam Smith 175

Scottish moral philosopher and political economist 1723–1790

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