IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/28866.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

On Smith's ambiguities on value and wealth

Author

Listed:
  • Meacci, Ferdinando

Abstract

Ricardo’s criticisms of Adam Smith on value and wealth have been sometimes rejected and sometimes accepted in the period following the publication of his Principles. By contrast, they have been mostly ignored in the recent revivals of Ricardian economics both in the branch concerned with value and distribution and in the branch devoted to wealth and equilibrium growth. This paper intends to fill the gap between these two branches by revisiting Smith’s link between value and wealth in the light of Ricardo’s criticisms. This is done in two steps. The first step is provided in Part I and deals with Ricardo’s criticisms i) of Say’s and Lauderdale’s criticisms of Smith on this issue, and ii) of Smith’s and Malthus’ arguments on the related issues of rent and of the “annual produce of the land and labour of a country”. The second step is provided in Part II. The aim of this Part is to dissolve Smith’s terminological inaccuracies or contradictions by disentangling them from the analytical foundations of his system of thought. This is done by re-examining Smith’s arguments on value and wealth in the light of two distinctions. One runs between the two points of view –of an individual and of society– which underlie the whole of his system of thought. The other is put forward by Smith himself in a neglected passage of the Wealth and runs between the notions of “work done” and “work to be done”. Both distinctions are then utilized to revisit the principle of exchangeable value as command of labour in the economy as a whole and in the sense of work to be done. The paper is closed by arguing that this principle is needed for supporting the idea of a permanent increase in the natural price of labour (in Smith’s rather than in Ricardo’s sense) in economies exposed to a continuous process of accumulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Meacci, Ferdinando, 2010. "On Smith's ambiguities on value and wealth," MPRA Paper 28866, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:28866
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/28866/1/MPRA_paper_28866.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christian Gehrke & Heinz Kurz, 2001. "Say and Ricardo on value and distribution," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(4), pages 449-486.
    2. Terry Peach, 2008. "A note of dissent on the 'index number' interpretation of Adam Smith's 'real measure'," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 32(5), pages 821-826, September.
    3. Neri Salvadori (ed.), 2006. "Economic Growth and Distribution," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3798.
    4. H. M. Robertson, 1976. "Euge! Belle! Dear Mr. Smith: The Wealth of Nations, 1776–19761," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 44(4), pages 245-262, December.
    5. Smith, Adam, 2008. "An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations: A Selected Edition," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199535927 edited by Sutherland, Kathryn, Decembrie.
    6. Blaug,Mark, 1997. "Economic Theory in Retrospect," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521577014, July.
    7. Peach,Terry, 1993. "Interpreting Ricardo," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521260862, July.
    8. Meacci, Ferdinando, 2004. "The competition-of-capitals doctrine and the wage-profit relationship," MPRA Paper 20118, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 2006.
    9. V. W. Bladen, 1975. "Command over Labour: A Study in Misinterpretation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 8(4), pages 504-519, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Meacci, Ferdinando, 1998. "Wealth," MPRA Paper 14713, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 15 Apr 2009.
      • Meacci, Ferdinando, 2013. "Wealth," MPRA Paper 55496, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2014.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Meacci, Ferdinando, 2011. "From bounties on exportation to the natural and market price of labour: Smith versus Ricardo," MPRA Paper 31153, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Ferdinando Meacci, 2009. "Different employment of capitals in vertically integrated sectors: Smith after the Austrians," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 22(4), pages 333-348, December.
    3. Meacci, Ferdinando, 2013. "Say's Law," MPRA Paper 55495, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2014.
    4. Tomasz Grodzicki & Mateusz Jankiewicz, 2020. "Forecasting the Level of Unemployment, Inflation and Wages: The Case of Sweden," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 2), pages 400-409.
    5. Su, Huei-Chun & Colander, David, 2021. "The Economist As Scientist, Engineer, Or Plumber?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 297-312, June.
    6. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2016. "Precise measurement of macroeconomic variables in time domain using three dimensional wave diagrams," MPRA Paper 69576, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Johann Graf Lambsdorff, 2011. "Economic Approaches to Anticorruption," ifo DICE Report, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 9(2), pages 25-30, 07.
    8. Khalid Iqbal, 2017. "Welfare Economics: A Story of Existence," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 20(64), pages 75-83, June.
    9. Abdul Karim Aldohni, 2017. "The UK New Regulatory Framework of High-Cost Short-Term Credit: Is There a Shift Towards a More “Law and Society” Based Approach?," Journal of Consumer Policy, Springer, vol. 40(3), pages 321-345, September.
    10. Edwards, Brian K. & Howitt, Richard E. & Flaim, Silvio J., 1996. "Fuel, crop, and water substitution in irrigated agriculture," Resource and Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 311-331, October.
    11. Mehrdad Vahabi, 2011. "Appropriation, violent enforcement, and transaction costs: a critical survey," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 147(1), pages 227-253, April.
    12. Andrew Lister, 2017. "Markets, desert, and reciprocity," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 47-69, February.
    13. William C. Strange, 2009. "Viewpoint: Agglomeration research in the age of disaggregation," Canadian Journal of Economics, Canadian Economics Association, vol. 42(1), pages 1-27, February.
    14. Nicolò Bellanca & Stefani Innocenti, 2013. "Not-dividing the Indivisible: Formation of the Sacred and Antagonistic Conflicts," Working Papers - Economics wp2013_10.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    15. Fanti, Lucrezia, 2018. "An AB-SFC Model of Induced Technical Change along Classical and Keynesian Lines," MPRA Paper 86645, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    16. Michael T. Rauh, 2007. "Incentives, Solidarity, and the Division of Labor," Working Papers 2007-15, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    17. Vladiir Yefimov, 2015. "Two Disputes Of Methods, Three Constructivisms, And Three Liberalisms. Part I," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 29-38.
    18. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Quantum strategy creation by interlocking interconnecting directors in boards of directors in modern organizations at time of globalization," MPRA Paper 68404, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ledenyov, Dimitri O. & Ledenyov, Viktor O., 2015. "Wave function in economics," MPRA Paper 66577, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    20. Jonathan F. Cogliano & Roberto Veneziani, 2023. "Classical Competition and Equilibrium: An Agent-Based Analysis," Working Papers 977, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Smith; Ricardo; value; wealth; labour;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B0 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:28866. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.