Assignment
1. Explain John Locke's theory of government, focusing in particular on his conception of a state of nature and the outcomes presumed to be normal to that state. Explain the two political traditions that have emerged from this theory with regard to the role of government in relation to the private sector (in particular with regard to the reasonable accumulation of property). Explain these two traditions and how they relate to Locke's theory of government. Elaborate.
2. Explain the economic philosophy of the Physiocratic school of thought. What did they consider to be the ultimate source of all wealth? Which classes did they think were productive, which ones did they consider unproductive? Why? What were their thoughts on monarchy and
democracy? Why did they advocate a single tax on rent? Why? Elaborate.
3. Explain Adam Smith's view of the relationship between the division of labor, economic growth and a system of natural liberty. Why did he believe that a system of natural liberty was necessary for economic growth? Elaborate.
4. Explain Adam Smith's notions of natural and market prices. What, according to Smith, determines the natural price, the value, of commodities in "an early and rude state of society"? How does this change once stock has been accumulated? Elaborate
5. Explain Jeremy Bentham's utilitarianism. What did he mean by "the greatest happiness for the greatest number?" What implications flowed from his utilitarian philosophy? Elaborate.
6. Explain Thomas Robert Malthus's theory of population. Why did he think it was an appropriate rebuttal to the revolutionary and egalitarian proposals of William Godwin? How was this theory used by the Classical Political Economists to explain the wages of labor? Elaborate.
7. Explain David Ricardo's theory of income distribution and economic growth. How and why did economic growth, in the absence of international trade, lead to changing shares of wages, rent and profit? How would these shares change? Why? What would happen to the economy, in the long run, according to this theory? Elaborate.
8. Explain David Ricardo's labor theory of value. Why did he think this was an improvement over Adam Smith's contradictory comments on the theory of value? What were Smith's ideas on the theory of value? Elaborate.