This paper analyzes labor productivity and the law of decreasing labor content (LDLC) originally formulated by Farjoun and Machover (1983). First, it is shown that the standard measures of labor productivity may be rather misleading, owing to their emphasis on monetary aggregates. Instead, the...

Contents: Preface -- Part I Classical competition: theory, evidence, and criticism -- 1. François Quesnay: Circular flow and input-output -- 2. Adam Smith: The 'invisible hand' and accumulation -- 3. Adam Smith II: The 'invisible hand' and 'natural prices' -- 4. David Ricardo: Prices,...