Doctrinal Contest I

Abstract

This chapter examines the doctrinal contest between Malthus and Ricardo regarding value. Ricardo’s notoriously challenging treatment of value in relation to quantities of labour allowed him to recast political economy around this problem and construe his predecessors and rivals—including Smith and Malthus—as doctrinally flawed. In this account of the science, correct theory concerning value was its keystone. Malthus responded to Ricardo by both denying the veracity of his doctrinal claims and by impugning the style of reasoning that had led Ricardo to take this view of the subject. Malthus also sought to deny Ricardo access to the authority of Smith by portraying the two thinkers as pursuing divergent systems. The key point that emerges from this contest is the doctrinal and unhistorical reading of Smith’s Wealth of Nations that Malthus and Ricardo established, a fate from which it has barely escaped today.