Contenu du sommaire : Le marché chez Adam Smith

The understanding in the commercial city in the theory of moral sentiments. Adam Smith's is situated in the earlier political and moral philosophy literature adres- sing the issue of social order, rather than in the subsequent development of economics. Following the same pattern as other former constructions of cities, Smith offers a definition of social bonds which opens up the possibility of a common good transcending individuals'specificities. The author's contention is that the main categories of the Theory of Moral Sentiments, « Sympathy » and the « impartial spectator »'s position, are key features of this construction : they capture characteristics of human understanding needed for the type of coordination which lays the foundation of the market city.

Smith on natural rights. In Smith's Lectures on Jurisprudence we find his most extensive effort to develop a theory of natural rights, in particular, a theory of the « perfect rights », the preservation of which is « [t]he first and chief design of all civil government ». The extent and direction of Smith's effort strongly suggests that Smith took very seriously the idea of moral rights that provided criteria for evaluating governmental action and which were not merely rules for the promotion of economic efficiency. Unfortunately, the key notions which Smith employed in his efforts, i.e., the notions of reasonable expectation and of attachment, are deeply amiguous.

The division of labour limited by the extent of the market : Smith's critique of the mercantilism. Smith's statement according to which the division of labour is limited by the extent of the market is often considered as a puzzling curiosity, that involves increasing returns. We demonstrate that it is not limited because of its result, the productivity of labour, but because of its cause, the allocation of labour force between agriculture and manufactures. Then we show that Smith's statement is at the core of his main argument against the mercantilists. Their economic policy would slow down economic growth and may even drive a nation to a regressive state, by raising up too hastily manufactures.

Regulation, intervention and regressive taxation in The Wealth of Nations. This article adresses several popular misconceptions of Adam Smith's ideas presented in The Wealth of nations. One misconception is that Smith was a strict, dogmatic advocate of laissez-faire capitalism. The article demonstrates that this is not true ; it discusses many of the exceptions which Smith made to strict laissez-faire. The article also points out that Smith was not explicitly against general state aid to the poor, and that Smith was not in favor of regressive taxation. Instsead, Smith favored proportional or perhaps mildly progressive taxes.

Labour market and division of labour in The Wealth of Nations. This paper intends to show that, unlike it is generally admitted, the relationship between workers and employers in the Wealth of Nations is not an exchange. In the first part, we expose that the manufacturing division of labour is just a kind of the social division of labour ; in the second part, the wage relationship is seen as an intertemporal exchange between commodities which are delivered today (wages) and commodities which will be delivered tommorrow (products of labour).

Economie field, moral and political fields in Smith. This paper focuses on Smith's approach to economic grandeurs in The Wealth of Nations. This approach answers two questions : first, the question of the social nature of value, as value is the space in which the produce of labour acquire its social homo- geneousness ; the second question is that of the conditions through which the general cohesion of the economic system is obtained in space and time. The analysis of the labour market provides Smith with the necessary theoretical link between these two questions.

The problem of the value of money. Galiani's text enables us to specify the importance of the theory of money in the early political economy. We then propose a critical reflection on two aspects of the monetary thought in the xvmth century : money as a particular commodity in Galiani's theory, and the notion of the real value of money in Smith's theory, notion which makes it difficult to define money consistently with the theory of value on the one hand, and which leads to conceiving money as a commodity voucher on the other hand.

The new economics of organizations lighted by the invisible hand. A new economic literature develops downhill from the Arrow-Debreu model of complete competitive and contingent markets which studies the organization, neither the market. However this new economics with its two branches — the economics of incomplete markets and the economics of institutions — maintains an ambiguous connection with the market. The aim of this paper is to show the Wealth of Nations contains (in its Book one) a clear distinction between the market ant the organization. On the basis on this distinction, the topical debates in economics receive a new light.

Economie rationality and just price. This study compares rationality of the neo-classical agent on market with rationality in the aristotelician tradition. Is the latter out-of-date as it is often said ? It is here suggested that on the contrary one should say that it is the former which is in growing difficulties.

Changements on wages and the groupes of interest at a macroeconomic lebel. an increase in the rate of profits in sraffa's model — ceteris parivus — may have as a consequence a reduction in the volume of profits corresponding to certain industries. this will impose some restrictions in the definition of the capitalits as a group of interest in front of the variations of the level of wages.

Economica : study of a prestigious english economic journal. This article is an exhaustive study, aiming first at bringing out the different topics found in the articles of Economica using the classification index worked out by the « Journal of Economic Literature », and then at studying the spatial distribution of the authors of the manuscripts published between 1980 and 1987. It appears that this prestigious journal plays a most important part in the fields of the Economic Theory and Labour Market. As far as the spatial distribution is concerned, the USA ranks first before Great-Britain and the rest of the world which both rank second. One chart gives more detailed information on the subject.