[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/uta/papers/2011_09.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Marxs Appreciation of James Steuart: A Theory of History and Value

Author

Listed:
  • William McColloch
Abstract
This paper argues that despite a growing body of scholarly literature on Sir James Steuart, his theory of history and influence on Marxian political economy has been largely ignored. The approach of this paper is motivated, in part, by Marxs sympathetic treatment of Steuart found in the opening of his Theories of Surplus Value, and in scattered asides throughout the remainder of his work. We argue that Steuarts importance to students of the history of political economy is three-fold: First, following Marx, we consider the unique and dynamic role played by history in Steuarts system. Steuart appears to have been the first thinker in political economy to both recognize the historical specificity of capitalism, and to conspicuously incorporate that realization into his system. Secondly, in Steuarts approach to the question of value and profit we find conceptions that defy easy classification. Steuart is seen to plainly abandon the mercantilist understanding of profit as determined in the sphere of exchange alone, and to treat what he calls the real value of a commodity as intimately related to its necessary labor time. Finally, we argue that Steuarts contemporary notoriety made him far more influential than is commonly recognized. In particular, we contend that Steuart, via Hegel, may have exercised an indirect influence on Marxs own theory of history, in ways that Marx could not have recognized.

Suggested Citation

  • William McColloch, 2011. "Marxs Appreciation of James Steuart: A Theory of History and Value," Working Paper Series, Department of Economics, University of Utah 2011_09, University of Utah, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:uta:papers:2011_09
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://economics.utah.edu/research/publications/2011_09.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blaug,Mark, 1997. "Economic Theory in Retrospect," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521577014, September.
    2. José M. Menudo & Ramón Tortajada, 2009. "Double Competition and Market Stability in Sir James Steuart," Working Papers 09.06, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.
    3. A. S. Skinner, 1962. "Sir James Steuart: Economics And Politics," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 9(1), pages 17-37, February.
    4. Hong-Seok Yang, 1994. "The Political Economy Of Trade And Growth," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 476.
    5. Skinner, Andrew S, 1990. "The Shaping of Political Economy in the Enlightenment," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 37(2), pages 145-165, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. José M. Menudo, 2014. "Sir James Steuart on the origins of the exchange economy," Working Papers 14.08, Universidad Pablo de Olavide, Department of Economics.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Tomasz Grodzicki & Mateusz Jankiewicz, 2020. "Forecasting the Level of Unemployment, Inflation and Wages: The Case of Sweden," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(Special 2), pages 400-409.
    2. Costas Lapavitsas, 2002. "Banks And The Design Of The Financial System: Underpinnings In Steuart, Smith And Hilferding," Working Papers 128, Department of Economics, SOAS University of London, UK.
    3. Su, Huei-Chun & Colander, David, 2021. "The Economist As Scientist, Engineer, Or Plumber?," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 43(2), pages 297-312, June.
    4. Daron Acemoglu & James A. Robinson, 2015. "The Rise and Decline of General Laws of Capitalism," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(1), pages 3-28, Winter.
    5. Khalid Iqbal, 2017. "Welfare Economics: A Story of Existence," Romanian Economic Journal, Department of International Business and Economics from the Academy of Economic Studies Bucharest, vol. 20(64), pages 75-83, June.
    6. Laurie Bréban & André Lapidus, 2019. "Adam Smith on lotteries: an interpretation and formal restatement," The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(1), pages 157-197, January.
    7. Thomas E. Lambert, 2020. "Monopoly capital and innovation: an exploratory assessment of R&D effectiveness," International Review of Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 36-49, January.
    8. Andrew Lister, 2017. "Markets, desert, and reciprocity," Politics, Philosophy & Economics, , vol. 16(1), pages 47-69, February.
    9. Nicolò Bellanca & Stefani Innocenti, 2013. "Not-dividing the Indivisible: Formation of the Sacred and Antagonistic Conflicts," Working Papers - Economics wp2013_10.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    10. Klára Čermáková & Pavel Procházka & Lucie Kureková & Jiří Rotschedl, . "Do Institutions Influence Economic Growth?," Prague Economic Papers, Prague University of Economics and Business, vol. 0.
    11. Michael T. Rauh, 2007. "Incentives, Solidarity, and the Division of Labor," Working Papers 2007-15, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business, Department of Business Economics and Public Policy.
    12. David Simpson, 2013. "The Rediscovery of Classical Economics," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 15080.
    13. Anders Liljenberg, 2005. "The Austrian Tertius Gaudens: A Revisit of Competition Theory in Light of Georg Simmel," The Review of Austrian Economics, Springer;Society for the Development of Austrian Economics, vol. 18(2), pages 195-218, June.
    14. Vladiir Yefimov, 2015. "Two Disputes Of Methods, Three Constructivisms, And Three Liberalisms. Part I," Economy of region, Centre for Economic Security, Institute of Economics of Ural Branch of Russian Academy of Sciences, vol. 1(1), pages 29-38.
    15. Christian Bjørnskov & Martin Paldam, 2012. "The spirits of capitalism and socialism," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 150(3), pages 469-498, March.
    16. Yefimov, V. M., 2015. "Two Disputes of Methods Three Constructivisms and Three Liberalisms. Part I," R-Economy, Ural Federal University, Graduate School of Economics and Management, vol. 1(1), pages 24-33.
    17. Kremser Christian E. W., 2018. "Positive Wirtschaftsanalyse oder normativer Wirtschaftsentwurf?: Adam Smiths kommerzielle Gesellschaft als wirtschaftspolitische Utopie," Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik, De Gruyter, vol. 67(2), pages 219-245, August.
    18. Roberto Camagni, 2002. "On the Concept of Territorial Competitiveness: Sound or Misleading?," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 39(13), pages 2395-2411, December.
    19. José M. Gaspar, 2020. "Paul Krugman: contributions to Geography and Trade," Letters in Spatial and Resource Sciences, Springer, vol. 13(1), pages 99-115, April.
    20. Marwan Mohamed Abu Orabi, 2020. "The Impact of Monetary Inflation on Investment Decisions in Jordanian Industrial Companies," Modern Applied Science, Canadian Center of Science and Education, vol. 14(7), pages 133-133, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    History of Economic Thought; Sir James Steuart; Classical School JEL Codes: B12; B14; B41; N43;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B12 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Classical (includes Adam Smith)
    • B14 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Socialist; Marxist
    • B41 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - Economic Methodology - - - Economic Methodology
    • N43 - Economic History - - Government, War, Law, International Relations, and Regulation - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:uta:papers:2011_09. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuutus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.