H. H. P y B M H A History of Economic Thought MCTOPMJI. by 3K0H0MMHECK0R Isaac Ilych Rubin MblC/IM Translated and edited by Donald Filtzei K30AHHE TPETbS co Bioporo aono^HEHHoro Poc/dapimatHHQio Ytewto Coatma Afterword tonyu&HO 4 xanetmu jr*t6noto MCOOUM 9M tyso* by Catherine Colliot-Thelene LINKS rOCyflAPCTBEHHOE H3^ATE^bCTBO MOCKBA * 1 9 2 9 * /lEHHHfPAJl Isaac Ilych Rubin was born in Russia in 1886 In 1905 he became an active participant in the 75 Russian revolutionary movement After the Bolshevik seizure of power he worked as a .^7/3 professor of Marxist economics and in 1926 became research associate at the Marx-Engels Institute In 1930 he was airested. An official Soviet philosopher wrote that: 'The followers First published as htoriya ekonomicheskoi of Rubin and. the Menshevizing Idealists. mydi (Gosizdat RSFSR) This translation treated Marx's revolutionary method in the taken, with the permission of the New York spirit.,, of Hegelianism The Communist Public Library, from a copy of the second Party has smashed these trends alien to Marx- printing of the second, revised Russian edition ism'. (Rosenthal, quoted by Rornan Rozdolsky (1929) in that library's possession in The Making of Marx's Capital?) Rubin was Ihis edition first published in 1979 by imprisoned, accused of belonging to an organi- Ink Links Ltd., zation that never existed, forced to 'confess' to 271, Kentish Town Road participating in events that never took place, London NW5 2JS and finally removed from among the living Between 1924 and 1930 Rubin completed Translation by Don Filtzer and published three books in addition to A © Ink Links, 1979 History of Economic Thought: Essays on Afterword by Catherine Colliot-Ihelene Marx's Theory of Value (published in English World rights in all languages by Black & Red, Detroit 1972), Contemporary © Ink Links, 1979 Economists in the West, and an anthology: Classics of Political Economy from the Cover design by Laura Margolis Seventeenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Century The Frontispiece is taken from the New York Public Library photocopy of the 1929 Russian edition of Rubin's book No part of this book may be reproduced without the permission of the publisher, except for the quotation of brief passages for criticism ISBN 0906133 165 Cloth ISBN 0906133 173 Paper Typeset in Garamond by Red Lion Setters, 22, Brownlow Mews, London WClN 2LA Printed by Whitstable Litho Ltd , Millstrood Road, Whitstable, Kent CONTENTS Chapter Thirteen Social Classes 117 Chapter Fourteen The Net Product 124 Chapter Fifteen Quesnay's Tableau Economique . 133 Page Chapter Sixteen Economic Policy 140 Chapter Seventeen The Theoretical Legacy of the Author's Preface to the Second Edition 9 Physiocrats 146 Part One Part Three Mercantilism and its Decline 17 Adam Smith 151 The Age of Merchant Capital 19 Chapter One Chapter Eighteen Industrial Capitalism in England Chapter Two Merchant Capital and Mercantilist during the Mid-Eighteenth- Policy in England in the 16th and Century 153 17th Centuries 27 Chapter Nineteen Adam Smith, the Man . .. 163 Chapter Three The General Features of Chapter Twenty Smith's Social Philosophy 167 Mercantilist Literature 35 Chapter Twenty-One The Division of Labour 177 Chapter Tour The Early English Mercantilists 42 Chapter Twenty-Two The Theory of Value 186 Chapter Tive Mercantilist Doctrine at its Height: Chapter Twenty-Three The Theory of Distribution 198 - Thomas Mun 49 Chapter Twenty-Four The Theory of Capital and Chapter Six The Reaction against Mercantilism: Productive Labour 208 Dudley North 59 Chapter Seven The Evolution of the Theory of Part Four Value: William Petty 64 David Ricardo 219 Chapter Eight The Evolution of the T heory of Money: David Hume 79 Chapter Twenty-Five The Industrial Revolution in England 221 Part Two Chapter Twenty-Six Ricardo'sBiography 231 The Physiocrats 89 Chapter Twenty-Seven The Philosophical and Methodo- logical Bases of Ricardo's Theory . .. 235 Chapter Nine The Economic Situation in Mid- Chapter Twenty-Eight The Theory of Value 248 Eighteenth-Century France 91 1. Labour Value 248 Chapter Ten The History of the Physiocratic 2. Capital and Surplus Value 255 School 101 3 Prices oj Production 260 Chapter Eleven The Social Philosophy of the Chapter Twenty-Nine Ground Rent 271 Physiocrats 107 Chapter Thirty Wages and Profit 279 Chapter Twelve Large-scale and Small-scale Agriculture I l l PartFive The Decline of the Classical School 289 Chapter Thirty/One Malthus and the Law of Population 291 Chapter Thirty-Two The Beginning of Vulgar Economy—Say 301 Chapter Thirty-Three The Debates Surrounding the Ricaidian Theory of Value 307 Chapter Thirty-Four The Wages Fund 313 Chapter Thirty-Five The Theory of Abstinence—Senior 320 Chapter Thirty-Six Harmony of Interests—Caiy and Bastiat .. 326 Chapter Thirty-Seven Sismondi as a critic of Capitalism 335 Chapter Thirty-Bight The Utopian Socialists 346 Chapter Thirty-Nine The Twilight of the Classical School—John Stuart Mill 351 Part Six Conclusion: A Brief Review of the Coutse 363 Chapter Forty Brief Review of the Course 365 Afterword By Catherine Colliot- Thelene 385 Name Index 433 Subject Index 437 Diagrams Quesnay's Description of the cir culation of commodities and of money 135 8 Editor's Preface where Rubin is paraphrasing a particular author we have tried to retain that author's own usage, whereas when translating Rubin's discussions of these texts we have opted for the terminology accepted in modern usage: There are certain exceptions, e g , in the section on.Adam Editor's Preface Smith where we have replaced Smith's term 'commandable labour' with the more modern 'purchasable labour' We have also followed This English edition of Isaac Rubin's A History of Economic Thought the standard practice of not modernizing the spelling or syntax of the has been prepared from the New York Public Library's copy of the passages quoted. 1929 reprinting of the second, revised Russian edition As the reader In a small number of cases we have deleted certain sentences or . will learn from Rubin's Preface, the book is made up of a series of phrases in which Rubin is recapitulating a doctrine that he has already lectures and was used as a university text The book must have been in discussed on several occasions These repetitive summaries, e g., of the fairly general use, because the reprint of the second edition ran to Physiocrats' views,on productive labour or Smith's theory of profit, 5,000 copies The lectures were intended to be used alongside two whilst perhaps of value in maintaining the continuity of Rubin's class- other texts, Marx's Theories of Surplus Value and an anthology com- room lectures, are a genuine obstacle to someone trying to read the piled by Rubin of extracts from pre-Classical and Classical political text straight through In no case have we cut more than one or two economy, Classics of Political Economy From the Seventeenth to the sentences at a time, and the sum of these elisions amounts to no more Mid-Nineteenth Century [Klassikipoliticheskoi ekonomii ot XVII do than two or three printed pages: thus the reader need have no fear sredwy XIX veka] (Gosizdat RSFSR, 1926) about whether she or he is receiving a genuine 'original edition' Lhe design of Rubin's book has presented certain difficulties in Finally, I should like to acknowledge the assistance of the reference translating and editing an English edition. Because it was to be used staff of the main library of the University of Glasgow and of the staff together with the above-mentioned collection, A History of Economic of the Sidney Jones Library, University of Liverpool, who gave me Thought contains no references for any of its quotations. Thus we have invaluable help in locating and using many of the original editions had to go through the laborious task of tracking down the standard from which I had to take quotations. I should like also to thank Prof English editions of the works of the many philosphers and economists D P O'Brien of the University of Durham and Prof Andrew S from whom Rubin quotes In most cases this was relatively straight- Skinner of the Univeisity of Glasgow for their help in tracking down forward; in others, such as the Physiocrats or Sismondi, whose works certain highly elusive passages Needless to say, all of these people are are translated either only partially into English or not at all, we have blameless for any remaining shortcomings in this volume on occasion had to be satisfied with re-translating Rubin's own Russian rendering of the passages in question The reader will see from the Donald Piltzer Editor's notes that these represent only a very small minority of the Birmingham, England quotations, and that most passages are from the English original (in April 1979 the case of French authors, most quotes are either from the standard English translation or have been translated directly from the French) In editing the work we have provided copious notes directing the reader to the original sources; very often we have also given quotations fuller than those provided by Rubin, so as to allow the reader to gain a better sense of the arguments of Petty, Smith, Ricardo, etc We have- also used the notes to guide the reader to other secondary sources that she or he might find useful and to explain historical and conceptual references that might be unclear in the main text As for the terminology used, we have in general followed this rule: 10 Author 'i Preface contemporary economic conditions and an expression of the interests of particular social classes and groups