Adam Smith's background of value conceptualization in The Wealth of Nations
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.46553/cecon.41.106.2023.p42-63Keywords:
Theory of Value, Adam Smith, history of economic thought, commensurabilityAbstract
This paper explores the antecedents that converge in the conceptualization of value presented by Adam Smith in the Wealth of Nations. It starts from Marx's reading of Aristotle as the first to raise the distinction between exchange value and use value to show that this tradition can be traced back to the reception of the Stagirite in the Middle Ages. From there, we seek to investigate the intellectual path of the problem of value understood as something incorporated into the product through labor. The aim is to show that Smith is part of a tradition which, although alien to Aristotle, is indissociable from him, and that in the apparent ambiguity of his proposal lie the difficulties of defining value completely dissociated from some objective parameter.
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