Assignment:
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).
Commutative Justice
Just price
Usury
Thomas Mun
Household management
Net product
Sterile class
Multilateral chain of transactions
Productive class
Disorganization
Single tax
Quesnay
The invisible hand
Water/diamond paradox
Progressive state
Labor-embodied theory of value
Pots and pans
Adding-up theory of value
Gift of nature
Stationary state
Laissez-faire
Theory of Moral Sentiments
II. Essays
1. Economic theory and policy often reflect 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. To what extent can this argument be made with regard to the medieval/feudal view of commutative justice, the mercantilist policy prescriptions, the physiocratic proposals, and the classical view favoring "laissez-faire" and free trade.
2. Compare and contrast the mercantilist, physiocratic, and Smithian theories about where profit (or surplus-product) comes from.
3. Define, describe, and compare and contrast early bullionist views to those of Thomas Mun.
4. To what extent did Xenophon and Aristotle represent a higher level of economic thought than tribal economic thought, as expressed in the Old Testament?
5. Compare and contrast the "natural law" of the scholastic period with the "natural law" of the physiocrats.
6. Compare and contrast the simple (deer and beaver) and complex (Glasgow factories) versions of Adam Smith's theory of value.