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Adam Smith and the Labour Contract: Is Labour Exchange Analogous to Commodity Exchange?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Tony Aspromourgos
Tony Aspromourgos*
Affiliation:
Faculty of Economics and Business, University of Sydney
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Abstract

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In his seminal and canonical text for the new science of political economy, the Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith seems to proceed as if there are markets for labour, akin to markets for ‘commodities' in the ordinary sense of that term. It might therefore seem as if for Smith, the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of commodities finds a more or less strict analogy in the production, distribution and exchange (or pricing) of labour or labour services, in ‘commercial society’ (his term), or in a liberal capitalist social economy. But how close, really, is the analogy between commodities in the ordinary sense and labour, in Smith's understanding?

Type
Research Article
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 20 , Issue 2 , July 2010 , pp. 39 - 48
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s) 2010

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