| The aim of this thesis is to present the classical ideas on labour economics within a systematic corpus. An attempt has been made to present a reconstruction of the classical authors' arguments, with an emphasis placed on establishing the similarities and differences between their ideas and contemporary thought. This research has been sub-divided into three sections. The first section is devoted to the analysis of the principal theoretical ideas contributed to the field of labour economics by the classical economists. This includes the notion of the subsistence wage, the concepts of labour supply and demand, as well as the classical ideas on the determination of wages and the question of wage differentials. Furthermore, the relationship between the labour market, and the market of goods and services, is examined from the perspective of the classical economists. Finally, the classical view of unemployment is analysed, including a comparison of the classical notion of unemployment with the modern ideas of cyclical and permanent or structural unemployment. In the second part of this thesis is presented a group of issues that gave rise to a great debate, not only amongst the main economists of the classical period, but also in the field of politics. These key issues include the poor laws, the question of the reduction of working hours and the role of trade unions. The opinions of the classical economists with respect to these issues allow us to understand how consistent they were with their own theoretical arguments, and moreover, with the arguments that are used nowadays in the discussion of similar issues. The third section is concerned with the discussion of three disparate, but important themes, namely the division of labour, the distinction between productive and unproductive labour, and the Marxian concept of exploitation. |
