The Concept of an Agricultural Surplus, From Petty to Smith

Abstract

Everyone has to eat, so agriculturalists must produce enough to feed themselves and the rest of the population. This statement is trivially obvious but making it explicit mattered to the early development of economic thinking. Many important economic writers of the period (Petty, Cantillon, Hutcheson, Hume, Steuart, Mirabeau, Smith, and others) used a specific notion of agricultural surplus of the form: x men can feed y, where y > x. A series of questions about the relation between agriculture and the rest of the economy naturally follows. Will the surplus be produced? How does it reach those who consume it? What are the “superfluous hands” (in Hume’s terms) to do? This paper points out this neglected theme in early economics.

BON PRIX, PROFIT, AND CAPITAL ACCUMULATION IN QUESNAY

“…282–286; and Beer 1939, p. 165). The idea that there must be surplus profits in the sterile sector that could be reduced to increase agricultural surplus profits and/or rents (Brewer 2008, p. 22) shows a misunderstanding of Quesnay’s price categories (see Vaggi 1983 and 1987). Moreover, if we recall the Fifth Letter on the Grain Trade, Turgot, while discussing a consumption tax, remarks: “[Day labourers] if they are thrifty, [they are able] to create a little movable fund which becomes their resort in unforeseen cases of sickness, or times of high prices, or unemployment.…”

Review of periodical literature published in 2011

“…Turning to the history of economic thought, Brewer considers a neglected theme by exploring how the concept of an agricultural surplus was understood by writers ranging from William Petty, to David Hume and Adam Smith. But it is indeed the work of Adam Smith that once again provides the greatest inspiration for scholars of economic thought.…”

When the History of Ideas Meets Theory: Arthur Lewis and the Classical Economists on Development

“…The relevant question was by how much to increase agriculture and manufacturing, depending on elasticities and other variables. Historically, the notion of agricultural surplus preceded the full development of the concept of economic surplus as a foundation of models of income distribution and growth by Ricardo and Marx (Meek 1951;Brewer 2011), on which Lewis (1954) would build his own model.…”