“In a country which had acquired that full complement of riches which the nature of its soil and climate, and its situation with respect to other countries, allowed it to acquire, which could, therefore, advance no further, and which was not going backwards, both the wages of labour and the profits of stock would probably be very low. In a country fully peopled in proportion to what either its territory could maintain, or its stock employ, the competition for employment would necessarily be so great as to reduce wages of labour to what was barely sufficient to keep up the number of labourers, and the country being already fully peopled, that number could never be augmented.”
-Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, Book 1, Chapter 9, Of the profits of stock
