Ricardo's model of capital accumulation is studied on the basis of his distinction between natural and accidental causes that are associated with permanent and temporary effects. The consequence is that, from the two contemporary interpretations of this model: theses of Hollander and Peach, only...

This article aims to show the originality and the richness of Smith’s analysis of the dehumanizing effects of the division of labour. First, I find out the origin of his analysis in the debates of civic humanism on the corruption of people’s character in commercial societies. Then I show...

This paper examines the interaction between education, growth and distribution from a classical-Marxian perspective. It first briefly examines classical-Marxian ideas on the relation between education and growth and income distribution. Drawing on these ideas to the extent that they are relevant...

This paper deals with income distribution in two classical reproduction models in disequilibrium where wages are considered equivalent to the value of a given basket of commodities. These models can be distinguished by the assumption about the distribution of the value of the nonaccumulated part...

Poverty was an ubiquitous theme in the literature of the beginning of the 19th century, and its analysis shifted from political or charitable perspectives to embrace a young science, namely the political economy. Stendhal’s example shows how political economy had become the only legitimate...

The social encyclical Rerum Novarum closely links the question of poverty with that of property, and invokes Thomas Aquinas. But on closer examination, the reasoning developed in favour of property departs from the scholastic thinker, since it maintains more affinities with the liberal tradition...

The publication in 1765 of Nicolas Baudeau’s work Idées d’un citoyen sur les besoins, les droits et les devoirs des vrais pauvres is the starting point of an analysis of social misery. Baudeau classifies poverty: poverty by age, poverty by disease, poverty due to accidents of life. This...

This paper presents an alternative to both Sraffa’s and his critics’ interpretations of the nature of Ricardo’s search for an ‘invariable measure of value’. It points out that Ricardo recognised two causes of change in the relative values of commodities: (i) changes in the labour...

What do we mean when we speak about the value of work? This article tries to provide an answer to this question by analysing the notions of value and its different forms: absolute and relative value, use value and exchange value, evaluation and the creation of value. It draws especially on...

The analysis here aims to explain Smith’s and Condorcet’s ideas about public education, stemming from their common adhesion to the principles of the “Liberalism of Liberty”. Their Liberalism makes public intervention necessary for education, so as to ensure the equality of natural rights...