[Homestead] American manufacturing

Don Bowen don.bowen at earthlink.net
Mon Apr 21 14:05:03 EDT 2008


>Both Adam Smith and Karl Marx, among many other observers, recognized
>that the first fundamental need is food.

It was Malthus who wrote about the limits of food and other resources.  He 
was a contemporary of Adam Smith.  Neither knew the Industrial revolution 
was about to significantly change the way the world behaves and the 
resources we had available.

It was Ricardo a few years later who explained to the new industrialists 
that the cost of labor was directly related to the cost of food, just as the 
cost of running a steam engine was related to the cost of coal.  At the time 
there was a battle between the land owners who had the power in parliament 
and the industrialists.  Land owners kept the price of grain and their 
incomes high by the Corn Laws which placed very high duties on imported 
grain.  It took several years before the industrialists gained sufficient 
power to repeal the corn laws.

Don Bowen      KI6DIU
http://www.braingarage.com/Dons/Travels/journal/Journal.html 



More information about the Homestead mailing list