Both productive and unproductive labourers, and those who do not labour at all, are all equally maintained by the annual produce of the land and labour of the country.
Regardless of whether a laborer is productive or unproductive, s/he still consumes about the same amount.
This produce, how great soever, can never be infinite, but must have certain limits.
Even the most productive laborer is limited in the amount s/he produces. (Written before machines were in common use, automation can vastly increase production, of course.)
Accordingly, therefore, as a smaller or greater proportion of it is in any one year employed in maintainng unproductive hands, the more in the one case and the less in the other will remain for the productive, and the next year's produce will be greater or smaller accordingly; the whole annual produce, if we except the spontaneous productions of the earth, being the effect of productive labour.
Smith is talking about agricultural workers, and seems to be talking about grain or potatoes, both of which require that a certain percentage of a crop be saved for planting the next year. If you produce more than you consume, there is more to plant the next year, and, given favorable weather conditions, this increases every year exponentially. But if a non-productive worker consumes a greater proportion of what s/he produces then there is less to plant for the next year, and so on, until one is committing the suicidal sin, "eating the seed corn." If the land is equally productive, it is better for it to be in productive hands.
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