Dear all,
And here is another one...
Samuel Bailey's 1825 'Critical Dissertation On The Nature, Measures, And
Causes Of Value' was an attempt to consider the nature of value in
political economy, especially that of David Ricardo and James Mill. His
charge against political economists was not that "they deny the
impossibility of an invariable measure, but that they maintained, almost
without exception, invariableness to be necessary to constitute a measure
of value, while I contend that invariableness has nothing to do with it"
(1826: 15).Bailey's view being that "On a review of the subject it appears,
that economists attempt too much. They wish to resolve all the causes of
value into one, and thus reduce the science to a simplicity of which it
will not admit. They overlook the variety of considerations operating on
the mind in the interchange of commodities..." (231)
An anonymous review of his dissertation which appeared in The Westminster
Review in 1826 (sometimes attributed to James Mill) was scathing. The work
is (to paraphrase) sophistry, metaphysics, jargon...a continuous snarl,
blundering, lack of knowledge and abundance of conceit, much ado about
nothing...
"our language-master has puzzled himself through several pages" (168),
when the answer is simple -- "Demand is the cause of value. There is no
puzzle about that;... To call it the Cause, is a metaphysical blunder...
One number is a measure of another, and one is said to measure another
exactly when it is the same... value is value" (168-170).and finally,
"...in every department of literature, that ['much ado about nothing'] is a
spirit which ought to be repressed; but because in Political Economy is
peculiarly noxious. While the knowledge of the science is still confined to
a comparatively small number, it has two powerful classes of enemies, the
interested, and the ignorant; who, we daily see, assume to themselves a
merit in decrying it" (172).
The force of sentiment is striking..'a spirit which ought to be
repressed'...
Nitasha Kaul
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