Overview

The originators of classical political economy - Adam Smith, David Ricardo, James Steuart, and others - created a discourse that explained the logic, origin and, in many respects, the essential rightness of capitalism. But, in the great texts of that discourse, these writers downplayed a crucial requirement for capitalism's creation: for it to succeed, peasants would have to abandon their self-sufficient lifestyle and go to work for wages in a factory. Why would they willingly do this? Clearly, they did not go willingly. Michael Perelman shows that they were forced into the factories with the active support of the same economists who were making theoretical claims for capitalism as a self-correcting mechanism that thrived without needing government intervention. To show how Adam Smith and the other classical economists appear to have deliberately obscured the nature of the control of labour and how policies attacking the economic independence of the rural peasantry were essentially conceived to foster primitive accumulation, Perelman examines diaries, letters, and the more practical writings of the classical economists. He argues that these private and practical writings reveal the real intentions and goals of classical political economy - to separate a rural peasantry from their access to land.

Full Product Details

Author:   Michael Perelman ,  Michael Perelman ,  Perelman
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.60cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 23.50cm
Weight:   0.934kg
ISBN:  

9780822324546

ISBN 10:   0822324547
Pages:   277
Publication Date:   03 May 2000
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
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Table of Contents

Introduction: Dark Designs 1. The Enduring Importance of Primitive Accumulation 2. The Theory of Primitive Accumulation 3. Primitive Accumulation and the Game Laws 4. The Social Division of Labor and Household Production 5. Elaborating the Model of Primitive Accumulation 6. The Dawn of Political Economy 7. Sir James Steuart’s Secret History of Primitive Accumulation 8. Adam Smith’s Charming Obfuscation of Class 9. The Revisionist History of Professor Adam Smith 10. Adam Smith and the Ideological Role of the Colonies 11. Benjamin Franklin and the Smithian Ideology of Slavery and Wage Labor 12. The Classics as Cossacks: Classical Political Economy versus the Working Class 13. The Counterattack 14. Notes on Development Conclusion References Index

Reviews

This study is to be admired for its comprehensiveness, scope, and the amount of unearthing and excavation Perelman provides The indictment of political economists who addressed themselves to the matter of primitive accumulation is masterful. --H. T. Wilson, York University

Author Information

Michael Perelman is Professor of Economics at California State University, Chico. His books include The Natural Instability of Markets: Expectations, Increasing Returns, and the Collapse of Markets.

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