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Robert Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth

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Robert Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth Robert Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth Taro Hisamatsu October 2016 Discussion Paper No.1633 GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS KOBE UNIVERSITY ROKKO, KOBE, JAPAN Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth 1 Robert Torrens differing from the neoclassical economist’s way of and the Classical Theory of Growth† identifying the real wage rate as the marginal products of labour, and an original conception of a surplus of Taro Hisamatsu labour to explain profit, based on the classical notions of necessary labour and labour commanded, without This paper reconstructs Torrens’s theory of economic growth. resorting to the Ricardian labour theory of value or the Actual wage is determined by the capital-population ratio Marxist theory of value. His approach thus does not between the maximum and the minimum wage. In the process require fixing one of two distribution variables of growth, the maximum wage keeps being lowered by the decreasing marginal productivity in agriculture, while the exogenously in order to determine the allocation of the minimum wage remains constant. Based on these notions of net produce between the capitalist’s and worker’s wages, Torrens’s economic dynamics are described as follows. income―a way which differs from both Ricardo’s In the early stage of growth, capital increases faster than way of requiring the wage rate given exogenously and population so that the actual wage rises above the minimum. Thereafter, the economy grows with a tendency for the Sraffa’s way of requiring the profit rate given population to increase faster than the capital while limiting the exogenously. actual wage below the decreasing maximum until it enters a The ‘statics model’ of distribution reformulated by stationary state and the actual wage and profit rate are reduced Rosell (2016, p. 15/18) can be clearly found in the to their minimum. This theory has been attributed to Ricardo by some scholars, but Torrens proposed a more ingenious theory 1829 text. However, most discussions in the text were than Ricardo’s. developed within the dynamic view. In particular, Torrens’s dynamic theory of economic growth based on three notions of wage―the maximum wage, 1. Introduction minimum wage and actual wage―is worthy of In the recent issue of the Cambridge Journal of reconstruction because it explicitly formed a more Economics, Rosell (2016) proposed a valuable ingenious theory than that which has been attributed to reconstruction of the theory of distribution presented David Ricardo (1772–1823) by Hicks and Hollander by Robert Torrens (1780?–1864) in his text entitled (1977) and Casarosa (1982). On the Means of Improving the Conditions of the This paper reconstructs the economic growth theory Labouring Classes, which is appended to the final in the 1829 text and clarifies Torrens’s vision of the edition of External Corn Trade (Torrens, 1829).1 The dynamics of a closed economy. Torrens’s view on main conclusions in Rosell’s reconstruction indicate economic dynamics can be explicitly explained by the the following: Torrens’s approach to distribution growth model, which incorporates the wage satisfying considers that the wage rate is set as a result of dynamic equilibrium between the growth rates of competition among capitalists or among workers, population and of capital, the minimum wage fixed exogenously and the maximum wage depending on the fertility of the lands under cultivation. Torrens † A part of the paper is based on Hisamatsu (2015) written in Japanese. The author has been supported by JSPS Grant-in-Aid repeatedly emphasised that the maximum wage rate in for Scientific Research (B): 25780144 and (B): 16K17095. I am terms of corn continues falling from the necessity of also grateful to Kazuki Kumashiro and Takuro Tanaka for the very helpful comments and suggestions. Responsibility for this resorting to inferior lands in the process of capital paper’s contents, however, must remain with me. accumulation, but Rosell omits this point from his 1 O’Brien (1966) points out that Torrens’s letter to Wilmot-Horton dated 23 March 1826 was in fact the draft of considerations. the 1829 Appendix. The Appendix, according to Robbins (1958, Torrens’s dynamic approach requires the classical p. 273) was reprinted with minor alterations in four publications: a tract entitled Colonel Torrens on the Wages of theory of differential rent, the core of ‘the principles of Labour, and on the Means of Improving the Condition of the rent’ (Torrens, 1829, p. 466), so that diminishing Working Classes. A New Edition, Corrected (1832), which is, returns in agricultural production must be assumed. according to De Vivo (2006, xxiii), ‘a reprint (with minor alterations) of the Appendix to the 1829 edition of External Torrens did consider distribution issues in connection Corn Trade’, On Wages and Combination (Torrens, 1834), A with both the theory of rent and the law of diminishing Letter to Russell (Torrens, 1837) and A Letter to Ashley (Torrens, 1844). returns, but such connections are never involved in Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth 2 Rosell’s ‘static model’, in which returns to scale are There, however, are the limits beyond which the actual assumed to be constant. wage rate cannot raise and below which it cannot fall. It should be also noted that in 1829, unlike before, Torrens argued a long-run tendency in population to 2.2 Maximum wage increase faster than capital. The argument has an The limit beyond which the actual wage rate cannot important role in clarifying his vision of economic rise is the ‘maximum’ wage rate. What Torrens calls dynamics. Such a long-term analysis is not involved in ‘the maximum of wages’ is defined as ‘that quantity of Rosell’s model, in which the system is assumed to be the products of industry which remains, after replacing limited to a single period. Also, as Torrens claimed to the advances, not consisting of wages, and paying the Nassau William Senior (1790–1864), the credit of capitalist the lowest rate of profit which will induce being the first to prove the tendency, the change of his him to continue the work of production’ (p. 461). His position was never trivial for him. numerical example in terms of corn illustrates that the This paper is organised as follows. Section 2 amount of ‘maximum wages’ received by 100 workers introduces Torrens’s concept of wages, based on (200 quarters) is the amount of output (428 quarters) which Torrens’s model of economic growth is set up in minus the amount of non-wages fund (200 quarters) Section 3. Section 4 clarifies his vision on economic minus the amount of minimum profits (28 quarters) dynamics using the reconstructed model and presents which is calculated as the amount of capital (400 a more theoretical understanding of the maximum quarters), composed of wages fund and non-wages wage depending on the land productivity and a more fund, times the lowest profit rate (7%): theoretical explanation of his correction concerning Workers ⏞ the growth rates of population and of capital. Section ⏟2qrs .× 100 men Maxmum wages 5 presents some concluding remarks. = ⏟428qrs . − ⏟200qrs . 2. Wages Output Non wages fund 2.1 Actual wage Capital ⏞ The term ‘wages’ is defined as the ‘articles − ⏟(2qrs .× 100 men + 200qrs . ) × 7% . Minimum profits [necessaries and comforts] of wealth which the The maximum wage per capita thus can be calculated labourer receives, in exchange for his labour’. It is by: ‘real wages’ or ‘commodity wages’ that ‘consist of the 428qrs.⁄100 men 200qrs. quantity of necessaries and comforts which the 2qrs. per capita = − , labourer receives’ while it is ‘nominal wages’ or 1 + 7% 100 men ‘money wages’ that are ‘the sum of money in which he that is, is paid’. An increase (a decrease) in ‘the quantity of Maxmum wage rate necessaries and comforts which the labourer received’ Output per capita means a raise (fall) in real wages (Torrens, 1829, p. = 1 + Minimum profit rate 454). All the discussions in the 1829 Appendix are explained with the wage in terms of a commodity, − Non wages fund per capita. ‘corn’, that is, the real wage in terms of corn. The maximum wage rate depends on the following The real level of ‘actual wages’2 is determined by three circumstances: ‘the quality of the soil, the skill ‘the ratio between population and capital, or, more with which labour is applied, and the degree of correctly, between the quantity of labour and the freedom which is allowed to trade’ (p. 462). Torrens amount of capital’ in the labour market (p. 468).3 states that the maximum wage rate ‘may be raised, either by the cultivation of land of a better quality, or 2 The minimum wage is equal to what Torrens had called ‘the market price of labour’ in the first edition of External Corn also of non-wages fund, Torrens later changed the phrase ‘the Trade (Torrens, 1815). amount of capital’ into ‘the quantity of the ingredients of capital 3 Considering that capital composts of not only wages fund but destined for its maintenance’ (1834, p. 22). Torrens and the Classical Theory of Growth 3 by improvements in the effective powers of industry; and custom’, or ‘natural causes’ and ‘moral causes’ and that this maximum will be lowered, either by (pp. 460–61): resorting to poorer soils, or by a falling off in the effective powers of industry’ (p. 458). Our work on the A labourer in Hindostan may continue to work with perfect dynamics of a closed economy requires analyses of the vigour, while receiving a supply of clothing which would be insufficient to preserve a labourer in Russia from perishing. effects of land productivity and labour skill upon the Even in countries situated in the same climate, different habits economy.
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