Chapter VI. Before Adam Smith
We enter now on the second part of the investigation: the history of the wages fund doctrine, and of the mode in which the relation of wages to capital has been treated by writers of the past and present.
Chapter V. Some Conclusions
The wages fund doctrine proper has now been done with, and, strictly, the end of our task has been reached. But there are some aspects of distribution at large so closely connected with the pros and cons of the wages fund controversy that they come within the scope even of an inquiry directed, as this is, to a very limited part of the general subject. There are some questions, also, as to the practical bearings of the discussion and its outcome, which call for careful consideration.
Was Keynes, as Hayek maintained, a “brilliant scholar”? “Scholar” hardly, since Keynes was abysmally read in the economics literature: he was more of a buccaneer, taking a little bit of knowledge and using it to inflict his personality and fallacious ideas upon the world, with a drive continually fueled by an arrogance bordering on egomania. But Keynes had the good fortune to be born within the British elite, to be educated within the top economics circles (Eton/Cambridge/Apostles), and to be specially chosen by the powerful Alfred Marshall.
For many of us concerned with liberty, the letters “NDAA” have come to symbolize Washington’s ongoing effort to undermine the US Constitution in the pursuit of constant war overseas. It was the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for 2012 that introduced into law the idea that American citizens could be indefinitely detained without warrant or charge if a government bureaucrat decides they had assisted al-Qaeda or “associated forces that are engaged in hostilities against the United States.” No charges, no trial, just disappeared Americans.
One of the points I like to stress in my introductory economics course, as well in my course on Economic Expansion and Development is that socialism, when implemented, results in poverty, starvation, death, and cultural ossification. The more hard-core socialist the system is, the worse its problems.
Chapter IV. The Elasticity of the Wages Fund
The results reached in the preceding chapters, while different in important respects from those usually associated with the wages fund doctrine, have yet been largely conservative. It has appeared that all wages are paid from the products of past labor, and that the supply of products of past labor exists mainly in the form of real capital.
Competition is a good thing.
It brings out the best in athletes. It brings out the best in students. It brings out the best in companies.
Since monopolies remove the positive effects of competition, however, it makes sense to reexamine one of the most detrimental monopolies that ever existed.
The Economist recently ran a piece criticizing the suitability of GDP as a measure of economic development and material progress.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics released the latest job numbers last week and the results were disappointing.
Chapter III. The Machinery of Distribution
The conclusions reached in the preceding chapters, if not of universal application, are at least of very wide application. They hold good of any community which has got beyond the most primitive stages in the arts, and in which the development of the arts has brought any complicated series of productive acts. They would hold good of a socialist community as well as of one maintaining the régime of private property.
