Aspects of Wages and Profit Theory from Cantillon to John Stuart Mill

Abstract

It must be explained that this study is not intended to provide a coherent and complete account of the development of wage theory from Cantillon to Senior. On the contrary, it is concerned with certain contrasts between a number of theories of wages in which I have become interested. What I have tried to do has been to identify some of the assumptions made and questions actually asked by the economists whose theories are included. I have avoided assessing the ‘correctness’ of theories in terms of the questions asked and assumptions made by later economists.

It is not because one man keeps a coach while his neighbour walks a-foot, that the one is rich and the other poor; but because the one is rich he keeps a coach, and because the other is poor he walks a-foot.

Adam Smith ¹