The Macroeconomic thought of Sir William Petty

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (3) ◽  
pp. 401-413 ◽  
Author(s):  
James H. Ullmer

Sir William Petty (1623–1687) is generally known to historians of economic thought as an early contributor to classical political economy. In fact, Karl Marx claimed—rightly, I believe—that Petty was the founder of that school of thought (Marx 1867, p. 81). Frank Amati and Tony Aspromourgos echo the sentiment that Petty, and not Adam Smith, was “the founder of classical political economy, that school which had its culmination in the Ricardian economic theory” (Amati and Aspromourgos 1985, p. 127). Aspromourgos has also observed that Petty wrote A Treatise of Taxes and Contributions, as well as other works, in order to provide “an answer to the questions of how to maximize total employment and surplus labour, and how to best utilize surplus labour” (Aspromourgos 1996, p. 16, emphasis added).

2017 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 331-370
Author(s):  
Nicola Giocoli

Abstract This paper deals with the famous Lochner v. New York (1905) decision from the perspective of the history of economic thought. In »Lochner« the Supreme Court affirmed freedom of contract as a substantive constitutional right. It is argued that, in writing for the majority, Justice Rufus W. Peckham was heavily influenced by classical political economy. Not, however, in the trivial sense of endorsing pure laissez faire, but in the deeper sense of applying Adam Smith’s recipe for building a “system of natural liberty”, viz., a social order founded on justice, private property, and free competition. My interpretation is validated by looking at the economic content of Peckham’s jurisprudence as a judge in the New York Court of Appeals. JEL Codes: B12, K21, L40


2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 036-049
Author(s):  
Igor M. Shiriaev ◽  
◽  
Daria S. Zakharova ◽  

The purpose of this paper is the identification of the functions of money and characteristic of their evolution through change of the used types of money. Research methods are a brief overview and comparative analysis of economic-theoretical approaches to the definition of the functions of money. A comparative analysis of the classifications of the functions of money, made by physiocracy, classical political economy, Marxist political economy, Austrian school of economic theory, German historical school of economics, neoclassical economic theory, Keynesianism, monetarism, institutionalism, modern monetary theory, is carried out. It is shown that various economic schools have different approaches to the definition of the functions of money. Some scientific schools separate money functions for basic and secondary, but other schools consider that all the functions are equally significant. It is concluded that modern changes in the types of money used lead to the fact that different functions of money (in particular, the functions of medium of exchange, measure of value, reserve of value, means of payment) are most effectively implemented by different types of money. Scientific novelty consists in the reconstruction and comparison of lists of functions of money identified by the most important schools of economic theory. The conclusions of the research can be used in scientific and pedagogical activities in the study of the essence and functions of money.


2018 ◽  
pp. 95-110
Author(s):  
L. D. Shirokorad

This article shows how representatives of various theoretical currents in economics at different times in history interpreted the efforts of Nikolay Sieber in defending and developing Marxian economic theory and assessed his legacy and role in forming the Marxist school in Russian political economy. The article defines three stages in this process: publication of Sieber’s work dedicated to the analysis of the first volume of Marx’s Das Kapital and criticism of it by Russian opponents of Marxian economic theory; assessment of Sieber’s work by the narodniks, “Legal Marxists”, Georgiy Plekhanov, and Vladimir Lenin; the decline in interest in Sieber in light of the growing tendency towards an “organic synthesis” of the theory of marginal utility and the Marxist social viewpoint.


2019 ◽  
pp. 135-145
Author(s):  
Viktor A. Popov

Deep comprehension of the advanced economic theory, the talent of lecturer enforced by the outstanding working ability forwarded Vladimir Geleznoff scarcely at the end of his thirties to prepare the publication of “The essays of the political economy” (1898). The subsequent publishing success (8 editions in Russia, the 1918­-year edition in Germany) sufficiently demonstrates that Geleznoff well succeded in meeting the intellectual inquiry of the cross­road epoch of the Russian history and by that taking the worthful place in the history of economic thought in Russia. Being an acknowledged historian of science V. Geleznoff was the first and up to now one of the few to demonstrate the worldwide community of economists the theoretically saturated view of Russian economic thought in its most fruitful period (end of XIX — first quarter of XX century).


Economica ◽  
1973 ◽  
Vol 40 (160) ◽  
pp. 474
Author(s):  
Mark Blaug ◽  
S. Hollander

2016 ◽  
Vol 10 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Øjvind Larsen

Piketty’s Capital in Twenty-First Century has posed a totally new platform for the discussion of the economy and capitalism. Piketty has reinvented the classical political economy founded by Adam Smith in his 1776 Wealth of Nations. Piketty has shown via massive historical research how growth and inequality have developed since 1793. Piketty’s conclusion is that the French Revolution did not change the existing inequality either in the medium or in the long term. Piketty’s prediction is that a new form of global capitalism will arise, patrimonial capitalism, in which inequality will develop further and the 1% of the World population will control 95% of all wealth in the World.


2017 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 453-481 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cosma Orsi

The aim of this article is to describe the rise and fall of the workhouse system in connection with the developments that took place in economic thought in the transition from mercantilism to the Classical tradition. By examining the economic debate about wages, efficiency, labor market, workers’ mobility, and unemployment, we discuss whether the social policy shift epitomized by institutional reforms like the Gilbert Act (1782), the Rose Act (1793), and the Speenhamland system (1795) was accompanied and eventually inspired by a change in the perception of major political economy issues. In doing so, we review the writings of Jacob Vanderlint (d. 1740), George Berkeley (1685–1753), Malachy Postlethwayt (1707?–1767), Josiah Tucker (1713–1799), David Hume (1711–1776), and Adam Smith (1723-1790), among others. Although a direct influence by these writers cannot be proven, the originality of the present work rests on the effort to put into perspective the arguments elaborated by economic thinkers and the proposals made by social reformers so as to identify possible connections between economic theorizing and social legislation.


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