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First published 1844

Elements of Political Economy (3rd edition, 1844)

by James Mill

London: Henry G. Bohn, 1844 (3rd ed.); Online Library of Liberty edition122 pages

Elements of Political Economy (3rd edition, 1844) by James Mill is available as a free PDF and EPUB download at freecapitalists.org.

Author
James Mill
First published
1844
Format
PDF and EPUB
Pages
122
Publisher
London: Henry G. Bohn, 1844 (3rd ed.); Online Library of Liberty edition
License
Public domain by publication date.

James Mill's compact textbook of Ricardian economics, first published in 1821 and here in the revised third edition of 1844. Organized under production, distribution, exchange, and consumption, it sets out the labor theory of value, rent, wages, profits, and the case for free trade in a short, deductive form that helped spread Ricardo's system.

What's in it

52 chapters · 64,963 words · free to read here

  1. Preface
  2. Introduction The Subject—Its Limits—and Division
  3. Chapter I: PRODUCTION
  4. Section I. Labour
  5. Section II. Capital
  6. Chapter II: DISTRIBUTION
  7. Section I. Rent
  8. Section II. Wages
  9. 1. That the rate of wages depends on the proportion between Population, and Employment, in other words, Capital.
  10. 2. Proof of the tendency of Population to increase rapidly.
  11. 3. Proof that capital has a less tendency than Population to increase rapidly.
  12. 4. That forcible means employed to make capital increase faster than its natural tendency would not produce desirable effects.
  13. Section III. Profits
  14. Section I. Nature of the Advantage Derived from the Interchange of Commodities, and the Principal Agents Employed in it.
  15. Section II. What Determines the Quantity in Which Commodities Exchange for One Another
  16. Section III. Effect Upon Exchangeable Values of a Fluctuation in Wages and Profits.
  17. Section IV. Occasions on Which it is the Interest of Nations to Exchange Commodities with One Another
  18. Section V. The Commodities Imported are the Cause of the Benefits Derived from a Foreign Trade
  19. Section VI. Convenience of a Particular Commodity, as a Medium of Exchange
  20. Section VII. What Regulates the Value of Money
  21. Section VIII. What Regulates the Quantity of Money
  22. Section IX. The Effect of Employing Two Metals Both as Standard Money, and of Using Subsidiary Coins, at Less Than the Metallic Value.
  23. Section X. Substitutes for Money
  24. Section XI. Advantages Derived from the Use of Paper Money
  25. Section XII. Inconveniences to which the Use of Paper Money is Liable
  26. Section XIII. The Value of the Precious Metals in Each Country Determines Whether It Shall Export or Import
  27. Section XIV. The Value of the Precious Metal, or Medium of Exchange, Which Determines Exportation, Is Not the Same in All Countries
  28. Section XV. Mode in which the Precious Metal, or Medium of Exchange, Distributes Itself Among the Nations of the Globe
  29. Section XVI. Money Transactions between Nations—Bills of Exchange
  30. Section XVII. Bounties and Prohibitions
  31. Section XVIII. Colonies
  32. Chapter IV: CONSUMPTION
  33. Section I. Of Productive and Unproductive Consumption
  34. Section II. That Which Is Annually Produced Is Annually Consumed
  35. Section III. That Consumption Is Co-extensive with Production
  36. Section IV. In What Manner Government Consumes
  37. Section V. Taxes on Rent
  38. Section VI. A Tax on Profits
  39. Section VII. A Tax on Wages
  40. Section VIII. Direct Taxes Which Are Destined to Fall Equally Upon All Sources of Income
  41. Section IX. Taxes on Commodities; either Some Particular Commodities; or All Commodities Equally
  42. Section X. A Tax Upon the Produce of the Land
  43. Section XI. A Tax Upon the Profits of the Farmer, and Upon Agricultural Instruments
  44. Section XII. Tithes and Poor Rates
  45. Section XIII. A Tax per Acre on the Land
  46. Section XIV. Taxes Upon the Transfer of Property
  47. Section XV. Law Taxes
  48. Section XVI. Taxes on Money, and the Precious Metals
  49. Section XVII. Effects of the Taxation of Commodities Upon the Value of Money, and the Employment of Capital
  50. About Liberty Fund
  51. The Online Library of Liberty
  52. Copyright Information

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