Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-dh8gc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-19T18:42:40.887Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Smith's Uniform “Toil and Trouble”: A “Vain Subtlety?”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Glenn Hueckel
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

The subject of this essay is best introduced by two statements written many years apart. One is by J. S. Mill:

[Adam Smith] speaks as if labour were intrinsically the most proper measure of value, on the ground that one day's ordinary muscular exertion of one man, may be looked upon as always, to him, the same amount of effort or sacrifice. But this proposition, whether in itself admissible or not, discards the idea of exchange value altogether, substituting a totally different idea, more analogous to value in use. If a day's labour will purchase in America twice as much of ordinary consumable articles as in England, it seems a vain subtlety to insist on saying that labour is of the same value in both countries, and that it is the value of the other things which is different. Labour, in this case, may be correctly said to be twice as valuable, both in the market and to the labourer himself, in America as in England (Mill, 1909, p. 567).

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , June 1998 , pp. 215 - 233
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Blaug, Mark. 1959. “Welfare Indices in The Wealth of Nations,” Southern Economic Journal, 26, 10, 150–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blaug, Mark. 1985. Economic Theory in Retrospect, 4th ed., Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Bryson, Gladys. 1945. Man and Society: The Scottish Inquiry of the Eighteenth Century, Princeton University Press, Princeton.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Groenewegen, P. D. 1969. “Turgot and Adam Smith,” Scottish Journal of Political Economy, 16, 11, 271–87.Google Scholar
Groenewegen, P. D., ed. 1977. The Economics of A. R. J. Turgot, Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haakonssen, Knud. 1981. The Science of a Legislator: The Natural Jurisprudence of David Hume and Adam Smith, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hollander, Samuel. 1973. The Economics of Adam Smith, University of Toronto Press, Toronto.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hueckel, Glenn. 1986. “Sir William Petty on Value: A Reconsideration,” in Samuels, W., ed., Research in the History of Economic Thought and Methodology, 4, JAI Press, Greenwich.Google Scholar
Hueckel, Glenn. 2000. “On ‘the Insurmountable Difficulties, Obscurity, and Embarrassment’ of Smith's Fifth Chapter,” History of Political Economy, 32 (forthcoming).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hutcheson, Francis. 1755. A System of Moral Philosophy, in Fabian, B., ed., Collected Works of Francis Hutcheson, 5–6, Georg Olms Verlagsbuchhandlung, Hildesheim, 1969.Google Scholar
Jevons, W. Stanley. 1957. The Theory of Political Economy, 5th ed., Augustus M. Kelley, New York, 1965.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl. 1859. A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, translated by Ryazanskaya, S. W., edited by Maurice, Dobb, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1970.Google Scholar
Meek, Ronald L. 1956. Studies in the Labour Theory of Value, Lawrence & Wishart, London.Google Scholar
Meek, Ronald L., ed., 1973. Precursors of Adam Smith, J. M. Dent & Sons, London.Google Scholar
Meek, Ronald L. 1976. “New Light on Adam Smith's Glasgow Lectures on Jurisprudence,” History of Political Economy, 8, Winter, 439–77.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mill, John Stuart. 1909. Principles of Political Economy, New Edition, edited by Sir William, Ashley, Augustus M. Kelley, Fairfield, New Jersey, 1976.Google Scholar
Mizuta, Hiroshi. 1967. Adam Smith's Library: A Supplement to Bonars' Catalogue with a Checklist of the Whole Library, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.Google Scholar
Myint, Hla. 1948. Theories of Welfare Economics, Longmans Green, London.Google Scholar
O'Donnell, Rory. 1990. Adam Smith's Theory of Value and Distribution: A Reappraisal, St. Martins Press, New York.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Porta, Pier Luigi. 1989. “Adam Smith's Subjective Stance. A Comment on Professor Hutchison's Before Adam Smith,” Economia delle Scelte Pubbliche, 3, 191–201.Google Scholar
Schumpeter, Joseph A. 1954. History of Economic Analysis, Oxford University Press, New York.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1759. The Theory of Moral Sentiments, edited by Raphael, D. D. and Macfie, A. L., Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1976.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1776. An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, edited by Campbell, R. H., Skinner, A. S., and Todd, W. B., Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1976.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1795. “Of the Nature of that Imitation which takes place in what are called the Imitative Arts,” in Wightman, W. P. D. and Bryce, J. C., eds., Essays on Philosophical Subjects, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1978. Lectures on Jurisprudence, edited by Meek, R. L., Raphael, D. D., and Stein, P. G., Oxford University Press, Oxford.Google Scholar
Smith, Adam. 1983. Lectures on Rhetoric and Belles Lettres, edited by Bryce, J. C., Oxford University Press, Oxford.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stewart, Dugald. 1793. “Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D,” edited by Ross, I. S., in Wightman, W. P. D. and Bryce, J. C., eds., Essays on Philosophical Subjects, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1980.Google Scholar
Young, Jeffrey T. 1986. “The Impartial Spectator and Natural Jurisprudence: An Interpretation of Adam Smith's Theory of the Natural Price,” History of Political Economy, 18, Fall, 365–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Young, Jeffrey T. 1995. “Natural Jurisprudence and the Theory of Value in Adam Smith,” History of Political Economy, 27, Winter, 755–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar