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John Stuart Mill's Famous Distinction Between Production and Distribution

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 December 2008

Vardaman R. Smith
Vardaman R. Smith
Affiliation:
James Madison University
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Extract

In the final sentence of the "Preliminary Remarks" to the Principles of Political Economy (1848), John Stuart Mill declares

The laws of Production and Distribution, and some of the practical consequences deducible from them, are the subject of the following treatise. (1848, p. 21)

It is almost two hundred pages before Mill asserts that

The laws and conditions of the Production of wealth partake of the character of physical truths. There is nothing optional or arbitrary in them. … It is not so with the Distribution of wealth. That is a matter of human institution solely. (1848, p. 199)

Type
Essays
Information
Economics & Philosophy , Volume 1 , Issue 2 , October 1985 , pp. 267 - 284
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1985

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References

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