What does /lit/ think of The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith?

>>8129805
I think it was a huge influence of Marx.

Hard to read desu but a must if you want to read Marx.Adam Smith was wrong in some regards and his style of writing is a bit weird but a very interesting book if you can get through the bullshit.

Extremely good but boring once he talks about corn, i fucking hate corn rent.

Also the currencies, very annoying.

>>8129805
Long, sometimes dry, and sometimes confusing. However, you'll leave the book with strong foundations in currency and labor. Really interesting, really eye opening.

Can anyine explain the part where he talks about corn rent and the price of commodities.He says that a rent is liable only to the variations in the quantity a certain amount of corn can purchase,when the rent is reserved in corn.

When a rent is reserved in another commodity is liable to the same variations as the one in corn but also the variations in the amount of corn that can be purchased with a certaib quantity of the good in which the rent was reserved.

Why does Adam Smith give such an importance to corn and does he think that the prices are regulated by the variations in corn?What does he mean with the phrase the subsistence of the labourer?

(for reference pafe 138-140 penguin classics chapter V)

>>8131947
Because subsistence farmers having basically a barter economy. If you make corn that is like your fundamental currency. Depending on supply and demand the value of the corn fluctuates, so if you have a bad harvest for example you might find those three hundred bushels or whatever are effectively more expensive because supply is lower.

When he talks about another commodity then you have to take into account both value of that commodity with supply and demand plus the holders of that commodity's valuation or demand of corn.

It's a discussion of how we come to a value of money which at the time was representative of a gold commodity. And I guess maybe market forces in general but I really can't remember that well.

>>8132116
It's really weird tho because he mentions that the value of something is subject to the variations in thr amount of labor corn can buy and the variation in the quantity of corn another commodity can buy.Adam Smith then says however that corn is regulates by silver creating a contradiction with the previous statement

>>8132447
I'd have to read it again, but I'm sure it had something to do with Hume's pool economy thing as far as I could ever work out. My memory is hazy tho. Price specie flow mechanism.

>>8131947
Because smith confused prices and value he is lost in a sea of contradiction. Read theories of surplus value

>>8132818
Any authors in mind?

>>8132480
Very possible since he was both a close friend and admirer of David Hume.

>>8131947
Remember Smith lived in France for a while and knew the physiocrats. The physiocrats noticed that you plant a seed in the ground and you get a "surplus" (not in the Marxist sense) from nature... this gift from nature is then further modified by human labour but the labour could only be applied to the gifts from nature and was the real original source of wealth.
Agriculture was unique to them and the initial source of all profit, rent and wages... this was the logical basis for land value-taxation since taxing profit or wages was not taxing the original source of wealth but its derivative.
Smiths thought in some ways was still influenced by the physiocrats but he advanced over them by at least recognizing that profit from industrial capital employing waged labour was the real initial source of all wealth under capitalism and rent and wages were derived from profit.

By "subsistence of the labourer" Smith means that wages are paid to labourers so they can purchase commodities on the market. Marx would say this is wrong, capitalists are not paying their employees to purchase commodities but wages are actually the price of a unique commodity, which he calls labour-power, which is the only commodity capable of really generating a surplus in the production process when applied to the constant capital.