> "The plans and projects of the employers of stock regulate and direct all the most important operations of labour, and profit is the end proposed by all those plans and projects. But the rate of profit does not, like rent and wages, rise with the prosperity, and fall with the declension of the society. On the contrary, it is naturally low in rich, and high in poor countries, and it is always highest in the countries which are going fastest to ruin."
>
> An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
> Book I, Chapter XI
> Of the Rent of Land
>
> http://www.econlib.org/library/Smith/smWN5.html#I.11.264