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Responding to Michael Perelman and Mat Forstater: 
 
Taxes payable in money have indeed been an important way of forcing  
otherwise self-sufficient peasants into the money economy. But that is  
not relevant to C18 or C19 England, where rents and taxes had been paid 
in money for centuries and where wage labour was well established. What 
is at issue is the game laws and the classical economists' attitude to  
them. 
 
My primary objection is to Michael's claim that the classical  
economists were aware of significant damage to agriculture as a result  
of the game laws, but that they kept silent about it for political  
reasons. This (still) seems implausible to me. It would be hard to  
claim that Ricardo, say, sided directly with the hunting landlords, so  
(as I understand it - am I right, Michael?) the claim is that (a) there 
was an indirect benefit to capitalists which (b) the classical  
economists recognized but (c) never mentioned, because it served  
capitalist interests better to keep quiet.  
 
I have no inherent problem with (c), given (a) and (b) - it is similar  
to Hicks's claim that classical and post-classical economists kept  
quiet about the short-run gains from a growing money supply in order to 
avoid offering temptation to short-termist politicians. The classicals 
were politically aware and politically motivated. On the other hand,  
though (c) is not ruled out, it does require pretty strong  
circumstantial evidence, given the absence of direct textual evidence.  
I don't see that evidence. 
 
In any case, (c) rests on (a) and (b); (a) seems false to me and (b) is 
I think certainly false.  Damage caused by the game laws cannot have  
benefited capitalism in the countryside in any way that I can see.  
Hence my comment that Michael seemed to see capitalism as an urban  
phenomenon. But a crippled agriculture would have been bad for urban  
capitalists as well, by limiting food supplies - the case is similar to 
the corn laws. The classical economists (Smith, Malthus, Ricardo etc.)  
thought that agriculture was particularly important to overall economic 
growth, and could not logically have supported a reduction in  
agricultural productivity.  
 
The basic point is very simple - a reduction in agricultural  
productivity would not increase the supply of wage labour by forcing  
people out of agriculture but reduce it by reducing output and marketed 
surplus and hence the ability to support the workforce. 
 
Tony Brewer 
 
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