From Petty to the middle of18th century, in the process of the emergence of British classical political economy, there appeared a group of economists who occupied a certain position. Although they are all small writers, they each have some opinions worth mentioning on some economic issues.
J. Locke (1632 ~ 1704) is the direct heir of Petty. His major economic works are Government (1680 ~ 1690) and On the Consequences of Reducing Interest and Increasing Monetary Value (169 1). Locke's hedonism philosophy provides a psychological basis for Smith's theory of human nature. Locke believes that labor provides the full value of almost everything. He also used "natural law" to demonstrate the boundaries of ownership, arguing that the uneven distribution of land and money led to the destruction of "natural law". This actually boils down to the exploitation of labor.
D. Bei (1641~1691) is another direct descendant of Petty. His main economic works are trade theory: mainly about interest, coin casting and damage, and currency expansion (169 1). North put forward a clear concept of capital for the first time, taking the affirmation of interests as the initial form of capital's resistance to land ownership. North's free trade theory is also the pioneer of British classical political economy in this respect.
Anonymous (the birth and death dates of surnames are unknown) pointed out in his anonymous book "Some Opinions on Monetary Interest, Especially Interest on Public Bonds" (published in about 1739 or 1740): "When they (necessities of life) are exchanged with each other, their value depends on the amount of labor necessary to produce them and usually used to produce them". Obviously, this author already has the original concept of socially necessary labor.
J. Marcy (? ~ 1784) Although he retained some mercantilist ideas, the progress of his interest theory is still worth mentioning. In his "On the Reasons for Determining Natural Interest Rate"; What is it, William? In "Investigation on Sir Petty and Mr. Locke's Views on this Issue" (published anonymously in 1750), he firmly opposed Petty and Locke's views that interest rate depends on the amount of money, and claimed that interest is only a part of profit, which is always determined by the general profit rate, and profit itself becomes the highest limit of interest. This corrected Petty and Locke's mistake that money is actually lending rather than capital, and improved their understanding of capital. Malsy's theory had a far-reaching influence on his contemporary D. Hume (171~1776) and later Smith. But neither Malsy nor Hume involved the source of profit itself.
D. Hume is an economist who has an influence on Smith. His main economic papers are about commerce, money, interest, trade balance and taxation, which are all included in the Collection of Political Essays (1752). He put forward the theory of trade balance, arguing that this balance is naturally determined according to the different economic conditions of countries, so trade cannot always be harmful or beneficial to a certain country, which provides a theoretical basis for the theory of free trade to refute mercantilist trade cybernetics. Hume is a theorist of monetary quantity. He believes that the sharp rise in commodity prices is the inevitable result of the increase in gold and silver, but the price change is not closely related to the increase in gold and silver, but it takes some time. This is the so-called price lag phenomenon. This kind of currency depreciation ultimately only increases the labor price, that is, raises wages. This is called wage lag. It is in this lagging period that currency depreciation encourages industry and commerce.
Answer: Smith is the most outstanding representative of the British classical political economy school and the founder of the theoretical system of British classical political economy. For the first time, he summarized the previous economic knowledge into a unified and complete system and enriched and developed it. Smith's most important economic masterpiece, A Study on the Nature and Causes of National Wealth, is an epoch-making masterpiece of British classical political economy. He emphasized that labor is the source of national wealth, and there are two ways to increase national wealth: one is to improve the labor productivity of workers, and the other is to increase the number of production workers. The former depends on strengthening the division of labor; The latter depends on increasing capital. Almost all of Smith's economic theories were put forward in the process of discussing these two propositions. Smith is recognized as a master by British bourgeois economists. For a long time, the study on the nature and causes of national wealth has been the source of inspiration for various theories of classicism and vulgarism.
D Ricardo is another outstanding representative of English classical political economy school, and he is a master of English classical political economy. His masterpiece is Political Economy and Tax Principles (18 17). In this book, he established an economic theoretical system based on axiology and centered on distribution theory. Like Smith, he expounded the law of capitalist mode of production and the corresponding exchange form from the front, that is, from promoting general social purposes, in an attempt to demonstrate that capitalist relations of production are most conducive to production and wealth creation. He investigated the relationship between the three main classes of landlords, capitalists and workers in British society at that time and the corresponding relationship between the rise and fall of three social incomes, and took the opposition between class interests, wages and profits, profits and land rent as his starting point. Ricardo's position on the side of capitalism is clear. Therefore, some people think Ricardo is a partisan economist, and his theory has become the banner of partisan struggle. Because of this, the British bourgeois classical political economy has reached its insurmountable limit. However, among the British bourgeois economists of Ricardo's contemporaries or later, there are still several figures worth mentioning to supplement the completion of British classical political economy.
E. West (1782 ~ 1828) was Ricardo's contemporary. In "On the Mistakes of Using Capital for Land and Strictly Restricting Grain Import" (published anonymously in 18 15), he expounded the theory of land rent, that is, the income of land will not increase in proportion to the labor used on land, but will increase in a much smaller proportion.
J Barton (1789 ~ 1852) investigated the relative decrease of labor demand in the process of capital accumulation in On the Environment Affecting the Working Class in Society (18 17). He pointed out for the first time that with the increase of capital accumulation, the part of capital converted into wages (which he called working capital) will be relatively reduced compared with the part of capital converted into machines (which he called fixed capital). Because the increase of labor demand depends on the increase of working capital, rather than the increase of fixed capital, the number of employees in different countries is directly proportional to the growth of capital, and the number of employees in industrially underdeveloped countries will be relatively higher than that in industrially developed countries. Ricardo added chapter 3 1 of On Machines to the third edition of Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, accepted Barton's view on machines, and admitted that his original view was wrong.
G Ramsey (1800 ~ 187 1) is a little later than Ricardo. In The Theory of Wealth Distribution (1836), the only two different names, fixed capital and circulating capital, are retained, but their composition is explained from the production process. In this way, in fact, fixed capital belongs to constant capital, and working capital belongs to variable capital. On this basis, he analyzed the distribution and came to the conclusion that wages are equal to working capital (actually variable capital) and "total profit" is equal to the total value of goods minus wages and fixed capital (actually constant capital). Ramsey is close to correctly understanding the source of surplus value.
R Jones (1790 ~ 1855) was contemporary with Ramsey. His economic works include On Wealth Distribution and Tax Sources (183 1), Introduction to Political Economy (1833) and National Political Economy Course (1852). Jones is superior to Ricardo in the source of land rent. He refuted the latter's statement about diminishing land returns. He believes that the generation of land rent has nothing to do with the fertility of land, but comes from the possession of land. Jones has realized that in capitalist society, land rent consists of excess profits. In explaining the historical economy, Jones also took an important step ahead of Ricardo. He only regards the capitalist mode of production as a transitional stage of social production development; With the change of material productivity, economic relations and the social, moral and political conditions of people associated with them are also changing. Marx pointed out here in Jones that "we see how the practical science of political economy ended" (The Complete Works of Marx and Engels, Vol.26, No.3, p.472).
The characteristics of nature and the main theoretical laws are the philosophical basis of British classical political economy. Both Smith and Ricardo, outstanding representatives of British classical economics, believe that the new science is not the expression of the relationship and needs of their time, but the expression of eternal rationality. The law of production and exchange discovered by new science is not the law of economic activity form stipulated in history, but the eternal law of nature, which is derived from human nature. Both Smith and Ricardo attributed the laws of nature to the expression of individual humanity as the foundation of human society. Their so-called individuals are ordinary citizens who are transforming into the bourgeoisie at that time, and their human nature is egoism.