The Systems View of Life
In that early and rude state of society which precedes both the accumulation of stock and the appropriation of land, the proportion between the quantities of labour necessary for acquiring different objects, seems to be the only circumstance which can afford any rule for exchanging them for one another. If among a nation of hunters, for example, it
... See moreAdam Smith • An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
The real value of all the different component parts of price, it must be observed, is measured by the quantity of labour which they can, each of them, purchase or command. Labour measures the value, not only of that part of price which resolves itself into labour, but of that which resolves itself into rent, and of that which resolves itself into p
... See moreAdam Smith • An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations
Decades after the truce, John Locke—whose philosophy influenced the American founding fathers more than any other—wrote about human nature as if it were an “unknowable x.” He knew that disagreements over religion (Jerusalem) and over reason (Athens) were dangerous, so he declared the question of human nature an unfathomable idea that people would n... See more
In a similar vein, the egalitarian philosopher Elizabeth Anderson has argued that, for Smith, the “leading virtues of market society” were not growth and efficiency, but rather freedom from relationships of private domination and dependence.