Abstract
What is there, one must first ask, so peculiar about the French usage of the term “capital” that one who observes Adam Smith’s use of it will instantly know his source was French? This question can most authoritatively be answered by reference to the passage from Réflexions in The Positive Theory of Capital, by Eugen v. Böhm-Bawerk. Here the standard paragraph as translated from Turgot contains “capital” minus the article, and in the singular as it is used in English.
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References
E. v. Böhm-Bawerk, The Positive Theory of Capital, p. 25.
Ibid., p. 32.
J. A. Schumpeter, History of Economic Analysis, p. 248.
Ibid., p. 323. In the opinion of Karl Marx, Smith’s “Ausführung fällt weit hinter Quesnay zurück.” (Kapital, II, X, p. 185).
Ibid., p. 324.
Ibid., p. 324n. The expression sur-le-champ may have been one Turgot commonly used. We find him using it in vexed disagreement with DuPont’s “corrections” on slavery, to point out that humanity is not always made to pay “sur-le-champ.”
Anon., Reflections on the Formation and Distribution of Wealth, p. 121-122.
D. Stewart, The Works of Adam Smith, II, Book II, chapter II, p. 431-432.
Ibid., p. 433. This theme has been given very thorough development in this chapter, as, i.e., “Money, therefore, is the only part of the circulating capital of a society, of which the maintenance can occasion any diminution in their neat revenue.” (p. 428) “The fixed capital, and that part of the circulating capital which consists in money…” (Ibid.) Phrases that bring to mind Prof. Carman’s concession that “capital” never was mentioned before Smith paid his visit to France.
Ibid., III, Book IV, chapter I, p. 153.
A.-R.-J. Turgot, Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution des richesses (1788), p. 71–72.
Anon., op. cit., p. 64-65.
Turgot, op. cit., No. LXI, p. 72; Anon., op. cit., No. 61, p. 65.
Ibid., No. LXII, p. 73; Anon., No. 62, p. 66.
Ibid., No. LXVI (the fake second so numbered), p. 84; Anon., No. 67, p. 75.
Ibid., No. LXIX, p. 87; Anon., No. 70, p. 78.
D. Stewart, op. cit., II, Book I, chapter VI, p. 74.
Ibid., chapter IX, p. 145.
Ibid., IV, Book V, chapter III, p. 425.
Ibid., p. 424.
Ibid., p. 430. An echo of Réflexions is heard on p. 427 where Adam Smith is speaking of the “private revenue of individuals” and consequently of “their ability to save and accumulate some part of that revenue, into capital…”
Anon., op. cit., pp. 30, 51, 62, 66, 70, 79.
Ibid., p. 98-99.
Stewart, op. cit., III, Book II, chapter V, p. 46.
Ibid., p. 47-71.
Ibid., Book II, chapter III, p. 26-27.
Ibid., Book III, chapter IV, p. 131.
Ibid., Book IV, chapter II, p. 177-178.
Ibid., Book III, chapter I, p. 79. There are, on this page, six uses of “capital.”
R. Goetz-Girey, “Réflexions sur la Théorie du Capital d’Adam Smith,” Revue d’Histoire Economique et Sociale (1936–37), 23: 314n.
Ibid., p. 311. The reference is to Cannan’s A History of the Theories of Production and Distribution in English Political Economy from 1776 to 1848.
Ibid., idem.
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© 1964 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands
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Lundberg, I.C. (1964). Capital. In: Turgot’s Unknown Translator. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-011-9592-8_10
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