>Dear List,
>
>I am interested in tracking down the history of when economists began
>using Robinson Crusoe as a pedagogical device in their writings. I
>know that Eugen von Bohm-Bawerk uses him to make points about capital
>theory, but I imagine it goes back earlier than Bohm-Bawerk. Are there
>any articles detailing this? Failing that, do the people here have
>ideas for older examples of economists using Robinson Crusoe by name?
>
>Thanks,
>Bob Murphy
In the first chapter of Das Kapital we read:
Let us take Robinson Crusoe on his island. Modest as he naturally is,
nevertheless he has various needs to satisfy and must therefore
perform useful labours of various sorts, make tools, build furniture,
tame llamas, fish, hunt etc. We do not refer at this time to praying
and other such activities, since our Robinson derives enjoyment from
them and regards such activity as recreation. Despite the variety of
his productive functions, he knows that they are only various forms
of activity of one and the same Robinson, and thus are only different
modes of human labour. Necessity itself compels him to divide his
time exactly between his various functions. Whether the one takes
more space and the other takes less in the totality of his activity
depends upon the greater or lesser difficulty which must be overcome
for the attainment of the intended useful effect. Experience teaches
him that much, and our Robinson who saved watch, diary, ink and pen
from the shipwreck begins to keep a set of books about himself like a
good Englishman. His inventory contains a list of the objects of use
which he possesses, of the various operations which are required for
their production, and finally of the labour-time which particular
quanta of these various products cost him on the average. All
relationships between Robinson and the things which form his
self-made wealth are here so simple and transparent that even Mr.
Wirth[6] can understand them without particular mental exertion. And
nevertheless all essential determinations of value are contained
therein.
If we now put an organization of free men in Robinson's place, who
work with common means of production and expend their many individual
labour-powers consciously as one social labour-power, all the
determinations of Robinson's labour are repeated: but in a social
rather than an individual way. Nevertheless, an essential difference
emerges. All Robinson's products were his exclusively personal pro-
duct, and were thereby immediately objects of use for him. The total
product of the organization is a social product. One part of this
product serves again as means of production. It remains social. But
another part is used up by the members of the organization as
necessities. This part must be divided up among them. The manner of
this division will change with the particular manner of the social
production-organism itself and the comparable historical level of
development of the producers. Only for the sake of the parallel with
commodity-production do we presuppose that each producer's share of
necessities of life is determined by his labour-time. In such a case,
the labour-time would play a dual role. Its socially planned
distribution controls the correct proportion of the various
labour-functions to the various needs. On the other hand, the
labour-time serves at the same time as the measure of the individual
share of the producer in the common labour, and thereby also in the
part of the common product which can be used up by individuals. The
social relationships of men to their labour and their products of
labour remained transparently simple in this case, in production as
well as in distribution.
--
==============================
Neri Salvadori
Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche
Universita' di Pisa
Via Ridolfi, 10
I-56124 PISA, Italy
phone: ++39-050-2216215 (2216466)
fax: ++39-050-2216384
e-mail: [log in to unmask]
http://www-dse.ec.unipi.it/persone/docenti/salvadori/neri.salvadori.html
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