short answers and essays

I. Identify the following people, things, concepts, etc., and explain briefly their importance in the history of economic thought (three or four sentences).

The invisible hand

Water/diamond paradox

Law of population

Lottery of life

Say's Law

Gluts

Labor-embodied theory of value

Peterloo massacre

Corn Laws

William Godwin

Industrial Reserve Army

Labor-power

Use-value

Phyllis Wallace

Particular labor-time

Tendency of the rate of profit to fall

Surplus value

Pin factory

Deer and beaver

Dialectical and Historical Materialism

SNALT

Henry Carey

Oliver Cox

II. Essays

1. Economic theory and policy often reflects the needs of either a ruling class or a rising class, although their proponents often claim that their theories and policies are for society's benefit as a whole. Describe how this proposition might apply to the debate over the Corn Laws and to Marx's advocacy of proletarian revolution.

2. Smith, Ricardo, Malthus, and Marx had strikingly different views of the long-run tendencies of the capitalist system. Carefully discuss the vision of the future development of capitalism associated with each writer. Explain the theoretical differences among these economists that led to these different views of the future. Include in your discussion the policies that each of the writers regarded as the most appropriate for either developing or destroying the capitalist system.

3. Trace the development of the labor theory of value from Adam Smith through David Ricardo to Karl Marx. What was the major contribution of each of the three economists to the development of the labor theory of value? What were the principles problems in the labor theory of value which Marx solved at a theoretical level? What additional problems remained, if any, in this theory?

4. Philosophy matters in economic analysis. Describe the enlightenment view of humanity. Describe how enlightenment philosophy was reflected in classical economic thought. Now describe dialectical and historical materialism. How is this philosophy reflected in the economic analysis of the Marxian school of thought? Which philosophy seems sounder to you in understanding the modern economy? Explain. If neither seems appropriate, what other philosophical system seems most appropriate. Explain.

5. Present the logic of the corn theory of rent and profit from Ricardo. Then explain what happens to the rate of profit in agriculture as more land of inferior quality is brought into cultivation. Show how the developments in agriculture affect the overall rate of profit for the capitalists. Explain why Ricardo favored abolishing tariffs on imported food as a result.

6. Ricardo was concerned about deviations of the relative prices of commodities when there was a change in the wage and profit rates. Show how he illustrated these deviations. Then explain why Ricardo was not overly concerned about these deviations, and felt that the labor theory of value was still reasonable.

7. How does Ricardo’s “comparative advantage” differ from Smith’s “absolute advantage” in the discussion of the benefits from international trade?

8. Henry Carey sharply criticized Ricardo and Malthus’s theory on several grounds. Summarize these differences. Explain how differing conditions between the United States and Europe influenced these differences.

9. Apply the “law of dialectics” to interpreting and evaluating this famous quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly." (16 April 1963).