Classical political economy drew the production boundary materially: productive labour created, or was necessary to create, material wealth or vendible commodities.

Classical political economy drew the production boundary materially: productive labour created, or was necessary to create, material wealth or vendible commodities.

• The study traces this boundary in 43 college-level introductory economics textbooks from 1890 to 1960 using qualitative analysis and numerical coding of production-boundary frames.
• Most nineteenth-century classical political economists accepted Smith’s account, while disputing whether auxiliary services such as transportation and trade contributed sufficiently to material production to count as productive.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  Most classical political economists in the nineteenth century basically accepted Smith’s rendition

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p3
• MacVane included services such as merchants, bankers, bookkeepers, inventors, and managers when they were necessary to carry on material production effectively, but excluded physicians, teachers, legislators, and civil servants when their work was not required for material commodities to be supplied.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  ‘necessary in order to carry on production effectively, and are as truly pro - ductive as is the labor of those who come into actual contact with the things produced’

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p6
• Smith classified domestic servants, civil servants, clergy, lawyers, and entertainers as unproductive because their work did not produce durable vendible commodities.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  the work of all of them perishes in the very instant of its pro - duction

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p2
• In classical political economy, only activities connected to producing material objects counted as productive.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  only activities connected to the production of material objects were to count.

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p4
• MacVane defined productive labour as labour directed toward producing or exchanging wealth and classified all other labour as non-productive.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  ‘We shall, therefore, understand Productive labor to mean labor whose immediate object is the production or exchange of wealth. All other labor we shall regard as Non-productive’

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p5
• Adam Smith made the productive–unproductive labour distinction central to economic theory and defined manufacturing and agriculture as productive because they create material objects, or “vendible commodities,” that are the source of national wealth.
  Evidence for this premise (1)

  What counts as productive? Redefining ‘producers’ in economic discourse, 1890–1960 — Classical political economy: producers as creators of material wealth

  manufacturing is productive, alongside agri - culture, because it creates material objects, which he referred to as ‘vendible commodities’, that were the source of national wealth.

  https://doi.org/10.1080/03085147.2024.2404355#unit-4-p1

These are challenges this argument’s reasoning pattern must still withstand. Answering them on Isonomia strengthens the argument.

• Is the context one where this definition appropriately applies?Open
• Is the definition of G acceptable and authoritative?Open
• Is the definition stipulative, lexical, or precising?Open
• Does a really have all the properties F₁, F₂, ... Fₙ listed?Open
• Are the defining properties necessary for G?Open
• Are the defining properties F₁, F₂, ... Fₙ sufficient for G?Open

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