In Parts I and II, we have offered an alternative to the dissociative economics of an economics of property – an economics of provision – and an alternative to property relations as the foundation of economic interactions – civic relations. In the next chapters, we continue the work of civilizing the economy by exploring three sources of wealth – labor, land, and money – from the perspective of the civic economics of provision. These explorations should not be taken as conclusive, but rather as attempts to give new directions for conversations about the multiple meanings of these sources of wealth. We begin with labor and an exploration of employment as self-merchandizing versus employment as engagement.

EMPLOYMENT AS SELF-MERCHANDIZING

Of the three sources of wealth – land, labor, and money – Adam Smith believed that only labor could really increase the amount of wealth, because a group of workers could become more productive through the division of labor. Labor, in other words, was the only cause of economic growth for Smith. Few agree with Smith's view of labor as the sole source of value creation today. Still, Smith's view of free labor remains a central tenet of the economics of property. As we already know, Smith did not consider slaves to be laborers, since they were the property of their owners. Laborers, on the other hand, “owned” themselves, or, we should say, owned their labor. They could then sell it for wages.