Problem description:
1. What does Xenophon think of wealth and its growth?
2. Briefly describe the basic idea and two development stages of mercantilism.
3. How to understand "land is the mother of wealth, and labor is the father and active factor of wealth"?
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Analysis:
1. What does Xenophon think of wealth and its growth? Faced with the contradiction between demand and material wealth to meet demand, Socrates advocated strict self-control, Plato advocated strictly controlling people's needs within the scope of basic needs, and Xenophon acknowledged the significance of material happiness and realized material happiness on the premise of balance of payments. According to Xenophon, wealth is not only the source of material happiness, but also the material basis of spiritual happiness. Recognizing the value and significance of material happiness also recognizes the necessity of wealth growth. Although Xenophon also advocated self-control and balance of payments by suppressing "desire", he also advocated alleviating material shortage by promoting wealth growth, which was an important aspect that distinguished him from other thinkers in ancient Greece.
Xenophon first emphasized the importance of labor to the growth of wealth. In Xenophon's view, even if labor has negative effects, it is also a price for acquiring wealth. "God requires us to get all good things at the expense of labor." (Xenophon, 1984: 47) In economics, Xenophon also pointed out that for those who have knowledge and capital, "if they work, they can use this knowledge and capital to increase their property". (Xenophon, 196 1: 4) Because wealth comes from labor, Xenophon further raised the meaning of labor to an ethical point of view. "Work is good, laziness is evil ... Only those who do good things are truly working and truly useful workers." (Xenophon, 1984: 19) Here, Xenophon has actually put forward some concepts of "productive" and "unproductive" in classical economics.
Xenophon also expounded the significance of division of labor to wealth production for the first time. Xenophon suggested that people with different talents should engage in different kinds of labor because they have different talents. "It is difficult to find a worker who is proficient in all skills, and it is impossible to become an expert who is proficient in all skills." (Xenophon, 196 1: 12) In ancient Greek philosophy, division of labor according to ability has ethical nature, but Xenophon also considered the significance of division of labor to improve labor productivity. Xenophon particularly emphasizes the role of division of labor in improving product quality. Perhaps Xenophon's real originality in the theory of division of labor lies in his idea that the degree of division of labor depends on the market scope more than 2000 years before Smith. Xenophon pointed out in "Education in Ju Lushi" that the food at the banquet of the Persian king was rich and of high quality. "This is not surprising, because like other crafts, the king's food is very particular. In small cities, the same person has to make beds, doors, plows and tables. If he has something to do, he will build a house. If he can find a client who can keep him alive, he will be satisfied. A person who has so many kinds of jobs can never do everything well. But in big cities, everyone can find many buyers, and only one craft is enough to make a living. Sometimes you don't even have to do all the crafts. One person makes men's shoes and the other makes women's shoes. Sometimes, one person only makes a living by sewing shoes, and another person only makes a living by cutting soles; Some just cut clothes, and some just sew. It is inevitable that people who do the simplest work can undoubtedly finish the work best. The same is true of cooking. " (Marx, 2004: 424 footnote)
The important innovation of Xenophon's theory of division of labor is that he first realized the negative effect of division of labor-the negative impact of division of labor development on human development. Xenophon pointed out that the development of division of labor makes people engage in monotonous occupations for life. Some vulgar skills will harm workers' bodies and even their spirits, making them unable to participate in social activities and state affairs (Xenophon, 196 1: 12). Here, we see some shadows of Marx's labor alienation thought.
2. Both early mercantilism and late mercantilism believe that money is the only form of wealth and the only standard to measure a country's wealth. This kind of wealth will not increase within a country, because within a country, what some people get is what others lose. Therefore, if a country wants to increase the absolute amount of wealth, it must conduct international trade, and in this kind of foreign trade, it must keep exports greater than imports. @nm^k； c=q
On the ways and means of increasing monetary wealth, the mercantilist views in the early and late stages are different. Early mercantilists believed that money should be accumulated in the form of stored money, and advocated that the state should take administrative measures to prohibit the export of money, while maintaining a surplus in every transaction and trade with each country. At that time, Spain, the Netherlands, Britain, France and other countries had promulgated various decrees, stipulated strict criminal laws and prohibited the export of gold and silver. Different from the early mercantilists, the latter mercantilists gradually realized the internal relationship between the currency movement and the commodity movement, and no longer emphasized that every transaction must maintain a surplus. Just remember the following principles: the total amount of money purchased from foreign goods cannot exceed the total amount of money obtained from the sale of domestic goods, so that the final total trade volume is a surplus and the total amount of gold and silver increases. Because according to the mercantilist point of view, all countries want to create a trade surplus, so where does the surplus come from? Therefore, in the later period of mercantilism, we realized from practice that blindly pursuing excess is not only futile, but also harmful. Like Thomas? Mann said: "Anything we impose on outsiders in our country will be immediately promulgated and imposed on us in their country ... Therefore, first of all, we will lose the freedom and convenience we now enjoy to bring cash back to our country, and therefore lose the sales of many commodities we export to various places, and our trade and our cash will disappear together." At the same time, mercantilism also recognizes that excessive domestic gold and silver will also lead to rising prices, which in turn will lead to a decline in consumption and exports and affect the trade balance. Therefore, it is considered that the best way to preserve gold and silver is to export gold and silver to engage in more international trade. This will not only make gold and silver disappear, but also increase it. The current export is for more imports in the future, which is the incisive conclusion of the late mercantilism that "money produces trade and trade increases money".
The basic view of mercantilism is the zero-sum theory of international trade, that is, the advantages and disadvantages of countries in international trade are completely opposite, and what you gain is what I lose. Therefore, mercantilists advocate economic nationalism and believe that national interests are fundamentally conflicting. This view reflects the understanding of money or precious metals by commercial capitalists during the primitive capital accumulation period.
The development of mercantilism has experienced two stages: early mercantilism and late mercantilism.
Early mercantilism came into being in15 ~16th century. In foreign trade, it emphasizes buying less, prohibits exporting money abroad, and tries to control the flow of money by administrative means to store as much money as possible, so it is also called currency difference theory.
/kloc-mercantilism prevailed in the first half of the 0/7th century, emphasizing selling more, advocating allowing money to be exported abroad, and thinking that as long as the total amount of money purchased from foreign goods is less than the total amount of money obtained from selling domestic goods, more money can be obtained. In the later period of mercantilism, in order to ensure the export surplus in foreign trade, the policy of protecting tariffs was adopted. Because the mercantilism in the later period tried to control or regulate the flow of goods and develop the handicraft industry in the workshop, it was also called the trade balance theory.
The difference between early mercantilism and late mercantilism reflects the different requirements for commercial capital in different historical stages. Mercantilism promotes the relationship between goods and money and the development of capitalist workshops and handicrafts, and creates the necessary conditions for the growth and establishment of capitalist modes of production.
3. In order to let the factors of production participate in income distribution, we must first make clear what are the factors of production and which factors of production should be allocated.
According to the traditional viewpoint in the history of economic theory, labor, capital and land (referring to all natural forces) constitute the factors of production. But there are two things to be clear: first, the composition of production factors is not fixed, but develops and changes with the development of social production. The elements in modern production are not only labor, capital and land. Second, the factors of production are mainly the factors of producing material wealth, that is, the use value. We should distinguish between the source of wealth and the source of value. As far as the production of material wealth is concerned, william petty's famous saying "Labor is the father of wealth and land is the mother of wealth" is correct, and it has been endorsed and quoted by Marx. Marx said in the fifth chapter of the first volume of Das Kapital: "The simple elements of the labor process are: purposeful activities or labor itself, labor objects and labor materials." The so-called "labor process" refers to the process of material transformation between workers and nature without production relations. The so-called "simple factor" refers to the most basic, abstract and general production factor necessary for all labor processes, which consists of three elements: labor, labor objects and labor materials. No matter primitive society or modern society, any material production and labor process can not be separated from these three simple elements. As a process of material transformation between man and nature, labor process is also a process of productivity. Therefore, the simple elements of labor process can also be said to be the simple elements of productivity.