Anti-Duhring, Part II, Political Economy, X – From The Critical History - Part 13

In fact, North's exposition is a classical Liberal advocacy of free trade, both in relation to foreign trade, and the domestic economy.

“certainly “something extraordinary” in the year 1691!” (p 302)

Duhring belittles North, complaining that he was a merchant, and that his work received no approval. Engels replies.

“Indeed! How could a book of this sort have met with “approval” among the mob setting the tone at the time of the final triumph of protectionism in England? But this did not hinder its immediate effect on theory, as can be seen from a whole series of economic works published in England shortly after, some of them even in the seventeenth century.” (p 302)

Its an indication of the extent to which things have deteriorated that, today, the same false ideas are propounded as 350 years ago, whether it is in relation to protectionism/Brexit/tariffs, or in relation to the confusion over money prices and interest rates.

As Lenin noted, in relation to the progressive nature of even Russian liberals, compared to the reactionary, petty-bourgeois ideas of the Narodniks, the liberal ideas of the likes of Petty, Locke and North, appear relatively progressive compared to the reactionary, petty-bourgeois nationalist ideas not only of the likes of Trump, Farage, Starmer et al, but, also, of the so called “Left” Brexiters.

“The “treatment of history in the grand manner”, which chalks up against Marx the unpardonable sin of making so much fuss over Petty and the writers of that period in Capital, simply strikes them right out of history. From Locke, North, Boisguillebert and Law it jumps straight to the Physiocrats, and then, at the entrance to the real temple of political economy, there appears — David Hume. With Herr Dühring's permission, we restore the chronological order, with Hume before the physiocrats.” (p 302-3)

Engels details the extent to which Hume copied the views of Vanderlint.

1. He treats money as a mere token of value
   
   
2. He argues there can be no permanent favourable or unfavourable balance of trade
   
   
3. He teaches an equilibrium of balances brought about naturally
   
   
4. He propounds free trade
   
   
5. He sees wants/consumption as the driver of production
   
   
6. He wrongly attribute bank money and government securities the influence on commodity prices
   
   
7. He rejects credit money
   
   
8. He makes commodity prices dependent on wages
   
   
9. He copies Vanderlint's “whimsical idea that the accumulation of treasure keeps commodity prices down.” (p 303)

Duhring had, previously, intimated that Marx had misunderstood Hume's theory of money. In fact, there was no such misunderstanding, and the misunderstanding resides with those that do not understand the difference between money and money tokens/currency. Hume was also guilty of this error, as, later, was Ricardo. By equating money with currency, i.e. a money token, Hume, and later Ricardo, confused a depreciation of the currency/money token, as a token of value, consequent upon an increase in the quantity of such tokens in circulation, with a reduction in the value of money itself, as a consequence of an increase in its supply. For Ricardo to make this error, as Marx notes, is particularly surprising, because it requires him to abandon his own labour theory of value, in relation to the determination of the value of the money commodity, e.g. gold. He is left determining the value of gold not by the labour required for its production, but solely on the basis of its quantity relative to other commodities, as Hume did.

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