ABSTRACT
In their analyses of economic systems, economists and economic historians have been concerned to discover ‘laws’ of economic behavior. Despite periodic disclaimers to the contrary, Ricardo accepted as a basis for economic analysis the labour theory of value;4 that is, the value of a commodity is determined by the quantity of labour embodied in its production. The capitalist is always concerned to increase the amount of surplus value he can expropriate from the workers. The sheer success of the Western capitalist system throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries made such writers as forecasted economic doom appear Jeremiahs. Rapid growth was associated with a significant change in the economic and industrial structure of the British economy. The rapid growth of the G.N.P. in the twentieth century appears to have occurred despite the declining importance of international trade. However, the growth debate continued; indeed it increased in urgency and stridency.
