----------------- HES POSTING ----------------- You raise an interesting question which bears on the distinction between classical political economy and contemporary economics. A succinct definition of the former is "a study of the nature of wealth and the laws of its production and distribution." Some years ago I started a thread enquiring about the transition in the discipline, perhaps beginning with Marshall and most evident in 20th century texts, reflecting greater emphasis on exchange theory, determinants of prices, employment, etc. Throughout the Wealth of Nations, Smith indicates the real wealth as the annual produce of the land and labor of a society or nation. He saw that what made an individual or family unit rich or "wealthy" reflected in assets both financial and non-financial bore no necessary relation to the wealth of the aggregate. It took later investigators to pin down more precisely what is meant by wealth in the politico-economic sense. Roy Davidson ------------ FOOTER TO HES POSTING ------------ For information, send the message "info HES" to [log in to unmask]