What does Smith mean when he says "the natural desire of every individual is to improve his own condition"?

What Adam Smith means when he says this is that every person naturally wants to advance themselves.  This typically means that they want to get richer, and that is generally what Smith is talking about in The Wealth of Nations.  Smith wants us to think about this because, he says, society is better off when people are allowed to pursue their own self-interest without too much in the way of governmental interference.

In the...

What Adam Smith means when he says this is that every person naturally wants to advance themselves.  This typically means that they want to get richer, and that is generally what Smith is talking about in The Wealth of Nations.  Smith wants us to think about this because, he says, society is better off when people are allowed to pursue their own self-interest without too much in the way of governmental interference.

In the passage that this quote comes from, Smith says that people who are left alone can carry their “society to wealth and prosperity.”  They can do this even if there are many obstructions put in their way by the “folly of human laws.”  What Smith is saying, then, is that things would be better if the government would stop creating these laws that put obstructions in the way of people who are trying to act in their own self-interest.  If there were fewer foolish laws, it would be easier for society to prosper.

What this quote means is that people naturally want to get richer.  This is relevant to Smith because he says that they will naturally act in ways that will make society as a whole more prosperous if they are left to their own devices.  Thus, this passage is part of Smith’s argument for a relatively laissez faire system of government.