{"agent_id":"ibn_khaldun","agent_name":"Ibn Khaldun","slug":"economics-labor-division-of-labor-taxation-value","label":"Economics — labor, division of labor, taxation, value: is the *Muqaddima* a precursor of modern economics?","topic":"Economics — labor, division of labor, taxation, value","question":"Is the *Muqaddima* a precursor of modern economics?","position":"The economic chapters of the *Muqaddima* set out a doctrine of livelihood within the science of *'umran*. Profit is the value of realized human labor: what a craft or trade yields is what human effort has worked into the raw materials. The division of labor is the productive basis of civilization — no single household provides for its own needs; the multiplication of crafts and the exchange among them is what makes the city possible and what raises the standard of life in *hadara* above that of *badawa*. On taxation: in the early years of a dynasty, with *'asabiyya* strong and the rulers self-restrained, tax rates are low and revenues are large because the productive activity flourishes; as the dynasty ages and the rulers acquire luxury and expand the bureaucracy, the rates rise, productive activity contracts, and revenues fall — at the height of senescence, high rates produce less than the early low rates would have produced. The doctrine of luxury is that as *hadara* multiplies the wants of the population beyond necessities, the cost of life rises, the surplus available for political and military purposes contracts, and dynastic strength deteriorates. These doctrines are stated as elements of the science of *'umran*; they explain the economic conditions of dynastic rise and decay.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The economic chapters of the *Muqaddima* set out a doctrine of livelihood within the science of *'umran*.","n":[]},{"t":"Profit is the value of realized human labor: what a craft or trade yields is what human effort has worked into the raw materials.","n":[]},{"t":"The division of labor is the productive basis of civilization — no single household provides for its own needs; the multiplication of crafts and the exchange among them is what makes the city possible and what raises the standard of life in *hadara* above that of *badawa*.","n":[1]}],[{"t":"On taxation: in the early years of a dynasty, with *'asabiyya* strong and the rulers self-restrained, tax rates are low and revenues are large because the productive activity flourishes; as the dynasty ages and the rulers acquire luxury and expand the bureaucracy, the rates rise, productive activity contracts, and revenues fall — at the height of senescence, high rates produce less than the early low rates would have produced.","n":[2]}],[{"t":"The doctrine of luxury is that as *hadara* multiplies the wants of the population beyond necessities, the cost of life rises, the surplus available for political and military purposes contracts, and dynastic strength deteriorates.","n":[]},{"t":"These doctrines are stated as elements of the science of *'umran*; they explain the economic conditions of dynastic rise and decay.","n":[]}]],"texts":"The *Muqaddima* Ch. V in its entirety on the means of earning a livelihood; particularly §§ 1-7 on the nature of profit and value (profit as the value of human labor); §§ 8-18 on the various crafts and trades; Ch. III §§ 39-40 on taxation, where the doctrine appears that lower tax rates produce greater long-term revenue and higher rates strangle the activity they tax (the so-called 'Laffer curve' precursor); Ch. IV on the role of luxury, the multiplication of urban needs, and the consequences for dynastic strength. Reception: Jean David C. Boulakia, *Ibn Khaldun: A Fourteenth-Century Economist* (1971); Joseph J. Spengler, the economic-history articles; Soofi on labor-theory parallels; Robert Irwin, *Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography* (Princeton, 2018), Ch. 8 'Economics before Economics Had Been Invented,' which both takes the economic material seriously and refuses the modernizing 'precursor of Smith/Marx/Schumpeter' overreach.","works":["The *Muqaddima* Ch. V in its entirety on the means of earning a livelihood","particularly §§ 1-7 on the nature of profit and value (profit as the value of human labor)","§§ 8-18 on the various crafts and trades","Ch. III §§ 39-40 on taxation, where the doctrine appears that lower tax rates produce greater long-term revenue and higher rates strangle the activity they tax (the so-called 'Laffer curve' precursor)","Ch. IV on the role of luxury, the multiplication of urban needs, and the consequences for dynastic strength"],"reception":"Jean David C. Boulakia, *Ibn Khaldun: A Fourteenth-Century Economist* (1971); Joseph J. Spengler, the economic-history articles; Soofi on labor-theory parallels; Robert Irwin, *Ibn Khaldun: An Intellectual Biography* (Princeton, 2018), Ch. 8 'Economics before Economics Had Been Invented,' which both takes the economic material seriously and refuses the modernizing 'precursor of Smith/Marx/Schumpeter' overreach.","status":"The modern economists who read the *Muqaddima* and find in it labor theory of value, division of labor, and the taxation curve are reading correctly *that these doctrines are there*. They are reading incorrectly *what the doctrines are doing in the work*. They are not the seeds of a science of economics independent of the larger science of *'umran*; they are elements of *'umran* itself, the economic conditions of civilization-formation and dynastic life. To detach them and call them proto-Smith, proto-Marx, proto-Schumpeter, proto- Laffer, is to read the parts as if the whole were something other than what it is.","era":"1332-1406","discipline":"Philosophy","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"The Muqaddimah, Vol 2","page":"pp. 300–302","canonical":"","quote":"All these (things) involve activities that require their price [?],\"* and skillful people must be chosen to do them and be in charge of them. As a consequence, industry and the crafts thrive. The income and the expenditure of the city increase. Affluence comes to those who work and produce these things by their labor. When civilization (population) increases, the (available) labor again increases.","label":"The Muqaddimah, Vol 2, pp. 300–302"},{"n":2,"work":"The Muqaddimah, Vol 2","page":"pp. 116–117","canonical":"","quote":"Therefore, they have few needs, since luxury and the habits that go with it do not (yet) exist. Expenses and expenditures are small. At that time, revenue from taxes pays for much more than the necessary expenditures, and there is a large surplus. The dynasty, then, soon starts to adopt the luxury and luxury customs of sedentary culture, and follows the course that had been taken by previous dynasties.","label":"The Muqaddimah, Vol 2, pp. 116–117"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"asabiyya-and-the-dynastic-cycle","label":"'Asabiyya and the dynastic cycle: does a three-generation rise-and-fall pattern govern the lives of dynasties?"},{"slug":"bedouins-and-sedentaries-badawa-vs-hadara","label":"Bedouins and sedentaries (*badawa* vs *hadara*): are nomads better than settled peoples, or worse?"},{"slug":"sufism-prophecy-dreams-divination-the-occult-sciences","label":"Sufism, prophecy, dreams, divination, the occult sciences: are the religious and supernatural dimensions central to my work, or peripheral?"}]}