Labour as a measure of value: Ibn Khaldun, Ricardo and Marx-a comparison'

Abstract

The Muqaddimah of Ibn Khaldun (1332 - 1406), a celebrated Muslim scholar and historian of the fourteenth century, is a comprehensive treatise couched in a holistic Islamic mold in three volumes. It became better known to the Western world with the publication of its translation in the English language after the middle of the last century. We shall refer to the work hereafter as Introduction. Exclusive writings on the contribution of lbn Khaldun to economic ideas are not many; references to him even in the writings on Islamic economics are rare and far between albeit one finds precise positions and candid explanations in the Introduction regarding resource scarcity, agents of production, division of labor, demand and supply, markets, competition, price formation, monopoly, trade, commerce and transportation, costs and profits, capital accumulation and so on. Indeed, at some places, he provides explanations pre-presenting modern concepts.