Chapter 2 of 28 · Lectures on Political Economy by Mountifort Longfield
CONTENTS.
- LECTURE I.Definition of Political Economy. Importance of National Wealth. Causes of the hostility frequently felt and proclaimed against this science. General defence of the science, and probability of its truth. Nature of the appeals made to experience against it. Political Economy a science of recent origin. The propriety and necessity of studying it in the present times. Page 1—21.
- LECTURE II. Wealth defined. Utility of definitions. Value and utility defined. One proportional to the other, as far as relates to an individual article and an individual possessor. Labour the best, but not the only real measure of value. Fallacy of Adam Smith’s argument. Why labour is the best measure of value. Fallacy of the argument used by Locke to prove that labour is the foundation of property. 22—42.Edition: current; Page: [x]
- LECTURE III. Mr. M‘Culloch’s argument to prove that the products of equal quantities of labour must always be of precisely the same real value. Labour not an invariable measure. Origin of exchanges. General law. Equality of demand and supply. Influence of cost of production greater in manufactured articles than in provisions. Utility of high prices in times of scarcity. Injudicious method of relieving the poor. Best mode. Utility of dealers in provisions. 42—63.
- LECTURE IV. Different values of different kinds of labour. Equal quantities of labour, though occasioning the same sacrifice, not of equal value. Five principles mentioned by Adam Smith as governing the relative wages of labour. Effect on commerce. Probable effect of the emancipation of the slaves in the West Indies. 64—85.
- LECTURE V. Origin and advantages of a division of labour. Principally introduced in the manufacture of articles consumed by the poor. Some remarkable instances of the effect of the division of labour. 86—107.
- LECTURE VI. Value. Measure of value. Cost of production. Latent intensity of demand. Degrees of intensity. Price measured by the least intensity. Origin of rent. Demand for land. Rent has no influence upon the price of agricultural produce. Successive qualities of land. Gradual increase of rent. 108—131.Edition: current; Page: [xi]
- LECTURE VII. The theory of rent sometimes mistated. Rent is not caused by the existence or cultivation of inferior soils. Limited by them. Three causes which regulate prices and rent. The first alone sufficient. Indication of the existence of the two latter. Effect of agricultural improvements. Sophism. Objection to this theory. Applicable only to farmer’s rents. Land in new colonies appears to be worth some rent. Effect of tithes. Land not worth any rent. Its existence disguised. Its existence not essential to the theory of rent. Erroneous account of the origin of rent. Fallacious argument of Colonel Torrens refuted. Real consequence of the fact on which it is founded. The fact itself denied by some writers. Fallacy of Mr. Senior’s argument in disproof of it. Real consequence of the fact noticed by Colonel Torrens. 132—157.
- LECTURE VIII. Profits. Fallacy of the appeals to justice on behalf of the labourer. Productive and unproductive consumption. Profit consists in a proportion. Meaning of proportional wages as they regulate profit. Colonel Torrens’s argument correct, but inapplicable. Mr. M‘Culloch’s argument. Its fallacy. Corrections necessary to be made in the statement which connects profits with proportional wages. 158—179.
- LECTURE IX. Theory of profit derived from the theory of rent. Mr. M‘Culloch’s statement of it. Refutation of the proof usually given of it. Opinion usually connected with it. Answer to the argument used in support of that opinion. True origin and regulating principle of profits. 180—199.Edition: current; Page: [xii]
- LECTURE X. Wages of labour. Importance of all questions connected with them. Principle generally assigned as governing the wages of labour. Argument used in support of that principle. Answer to the argument. Mediate and immediate causes to be carefully distinguished. Principle on which the real wages of labour must depend. 200—221.
- LECTURE XI. Miscellaneous remarks. 222—242.
Lectures on Political Economy
Read the whole book online · Book details
Free to read online and to download from this archive.