ABSTRACT
Adam Smith possessed a tool in his approach to the theory of value which, in his hands and in the hands of his classical successors, led to a theory of growth and accumulation that became the foundation block of political economy. Normal prices ceased to be the central concept of the analysis of long-period positions or long-term equilibria much later with the advent of intertemporal equilibrium theory, based on the dating of commodities and factors, and the introduction of futures markets. The prices of production resulted from a redistribution of the total surplus value earned by all capitalists. Entrepreneurial profit is primarily a matter of risk. The labour theory of value then holds on average, in that the average of the deviations of labour values from prices of production disappears so that total profits are equal to total surplus value on average, and the rates of profit in value and in price terms coincide.
