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Date: | Fri Mar 31 17:19:01 2006 |
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----------------- HES POSTING -----------------
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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