Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-hfldf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-06-01T16:01:22.783Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Pseudo-Scientific Economic Doctrine—Continued

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2022

Joseph Mayer*
Affiliation:
Library of Congress, Washington, D. C.

Extract

The analyses thus far undertaken of cost theory and utility theory have viewed these doctrines as they originally were, namely, as the contentions of two conflicting groups of value theorists. And had the two rival groups been allowed to continue to match strength on the plane on which Macvane, for example, contended, the result would probably have been the destruction of them both. Underneath surface conflicts, however, the rival theories had much in common. As the twentieth century got under way, this state of affairs was discerned, with the result that in the end there was hand-shaking and backslapping all around and the inauguration of a live-and-let-live policy. Although at first regarding each other as mortal enemies, these two groups of price-determination theorists later came to see in one another something resembling blood kinship. But are the underlying assumptions which classicism and neoclassicism have in common any more realistic and scientific than the specific assumptions already examined? This is a question to which we now turn.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Philosophy of Science Association 1936

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

52 E. R. A. Seligman, “Discussion,” American Economic Association Publications, 3rd Series, Vol. II, February, 1901, pp. 247–249; also his “Social Elements in the Theory of Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1901, pp. 321–347; and Alfred Marshall, “Principles of Economics,” 4th ed., Macmillan, London, 1898, Vol. I, p. 428.

53 Cf., Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, “Positive Theory of Capital,” Macmillan, London, 1891, pp. 199–233; C. W. Macfarlane, “Value and Distribution,” Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1899, pp. 42–53.

54 Cf., C. E. Persons, “Marginal Utility and Marginal Disutility as Ultimate Standards of Value,” Quartery Journal of Economics, August, 1913, pp. 547–578; and Marshall, op. cit., Vol. I, pp. 205–206. Cf., also, J. B. Clark, “Distribution of Wealth,” Macmillan, New York, 1899, p. 380, who says:

“Similarly, if all society acts in reality as one man, it makes such utility measurements of all commodities, and the trouble arising from the fact that there are many measures disappears. A market secures this result, for society acts as a unit—like an individual buyer.” For a later discussion, admitting the effect of inequality, cf., F. W. Taussig, “Principles of Economics,” 3rd ed. rev., Vol. I, pp. 116–133, especially pp. 124–129.

For the distribution of British incomes in 1904, see Taussig, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 255. It is interesting to note that the distribution at that time in Great Britain was about the same as the distribution of incomes in the United States in 1929. Cf., Leven, Moulton, and Warburton, “America's Capacity to Consume,” Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., 1934, p. 54, where it is indicated that 13 per cent of American families in 1929 received around 49 per cent of the income.

55 Persons, op. cit., pp. 560–576. Cf., also, Clark, op. cit., pp. 391–392.

56 Cf., John Bates Clark, “Essentials of Economic Theory,” Macmillan, New York, 1907; and Thorstein Veblen, “Professor Clark's Economics,” The Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1908, pp. 147–195 (148–150).

57 Veblen, op. cit., pp. 151, 154–157.

J. B. Clark, op. cit., pp. 196–197. Of J. B. Clark's other works, see also: “The Philosophy of Wealth,” Ginn, Boston, 1894; “The Distribution of Wealth,” Macmillan New York, 1899; and “The Control of Trusts,” Macmillan, New York, 1901.

58 Veblen, op. cit., pp. 159–166.

59 Ibid., pp. 168–182, 190–195. For an excellent analysis and refutation of Clark's specific productivity doctrine as such, see W. M. Adriance's “Specific Productivity,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1914, pp. 149–176. Cf., also, Joseph Mayer, “Consumer's Surplus,” American Economic Review, March, 1926, pp. 77–80; P. G. Wright, “Total Utility and Consumer's Surplus,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February 1917, pp. 307 ff; H. E. Miller, “Utility Curves, Total Utility, and Consumer's Surplus,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1927, pp. 292 ff.; R. S. Meriam, “Supply Curves and Maximum Satisfaction,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1928, pp. 169 ff.; G. W. Terbough, “Psychic Income,” American Economic Review, March, 1928, pp. 75 ff.

60 Veblen, “The Limitations of Marginal Utility,” Journal of Political Economy, November, 1909, pp. 620–636. Of Veblen's other works, see also: “The Place of Science in Modern Civilization,” Huebsch, New York, 1919; “The Theory of Business Enterprise,” Scribner, New York, 1920; “The Vested Interests and the State of the Industrial Arts,” Huebsch, New York, 1920; “The Engineers and the Price System,” Huebsch, New York, 1921.

61 Cf., Wesley C. Mitchell, “The Rationality of Economic Activity,” I and II, Journal of Political Economy, February-March, 1910, pp. 97–113, 197–216 (Part I, p. 103). Cf., also, William McDougall, “An Introduction to Social Psychology,” rev. ed., Luce, New York, 1926.

62 Mitchell, op. cit., pp. 107–108, quoting Maffeo Pantaleoni, “Pure Economics,” tr. by T. B. Bruce, Macmillan, New York, 1898, pp. 3, 9, 10.

Cf., also, Mayer, “Toward a Science of Society,” op. cit., pp. 162–165.

63 Mitchell, op. cit., Part I, p. 111; Part II, pp. 199, 206–216.

64 Ibid., Part I, pp. 111–112, Part II, p. 216. Of Mitchell's other writings, see also: “The Backward Art of Spending Money,” American Economic Review, June, 1912, pp. 269–281; “Human Behavior and Economics: A Survey of Recent Literature,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, Nov., 1914, pp. 1–47; “The Rôle of Money in Economic Theory,” American Economic Review, Supp., March, 1916, pp. 140–161; “Wieser's Theory of Social Economics,” Political Science Quarterly, March, 1917, pp. 95–118; “Bentham's Felicific Calculus,” Political Science Quarterly, June, 1918, pp. 161–183; “Making Goods and Making Money,” Economics and Engineering, Joint session of the American Economic Association and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, Dec. 6, 1922; “The Prospects of Economics” in “The Trend of Economics,” edited by R. G. Tugwell, Knopf, New York, 1924, pp. 3–34.

65 E. H. Downey, “The Futility of Marginal Utility,” Journal of Political Economy, April, 1910, pp. 253–268. Cf., also, Mayer, “Comparative Value and Human Behavior,” op. cit.

66 Downey, op. cit., pp. 263–268.

67 Cf., Fairchild, Furniss, and Buck, “Elementary Economics,” Macmillan, New York, 1926, Vol. I, p. 297; also, idem., discussion on pp. 308–310; and Mitchell, “The Rationality of Economic Activity,” Journal of Political Economy, March, 1910, pp. 205–216.

68 With respect to the importance of judgment in valuation, see: R. B. Perry, “Economic Value and Moral Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1916, pp. 452–453, 457.

If it be objected here that the discussion falls outside the field of economics proper, reference is made to Mitchell, “The Rationality of Economic Activity,” op. cit., and to his emphasis upon the need in economic theory of reaching down to psychological foundations; also to Frank H. Knight's writings, especially “Economic Psychology and the Value Problem,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1925, pp. 372–409, in which the importance of the relation of economic theory to broader philosophical questions is stressed. Cf., Mitchell, “The Rationality of Economic Activity,” op. cit., pp. 98–102, 198–200; Downey, “The Futility of Marginal Utility,” op. cit., pp. 255–256; Z. C. Dickinson, “Economic Motives,” Harvard Economic Studies, XXIV, Cambridge, 1922; F. A. C. Perrin, “The Psychology of Motivation,” Psychological Review, May, 1923, pp. 176–191; E. L. Thorndike, “Educational Psychology,” Columbia University, New York, 1913, Vol. I; R. G. Tugwell, “Human Nature in Economic Theory,” Journal of Political Economy, June, 1922, pp. 317–345; Graham Wallas, “The Great Society,” Macmillan, New York, 1914; Clark Wissler, “Man and Culture,” Crowell, New York, 1923. For other meanings to preference, see Mayer,“ Comparative Value and Human Behavior,” op. cit.

69 Cf., Veblen, “Limitations of Marginal Utility,” Journal of Political Economy, November, 1909, p. 635; and S. M. Macvane, “Marginal Utility and Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, April, 1893, pp. 271–273.

70 J. M. Clark, “The Socializing of Economics,” in “The Trend of Economics,” edited by R. G. Tugwell, Knopf, New York, 1924, p. 82, also his “Social Control of Business,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1926, pp. 6–7, 37–39, 132–138.

71 Cf., Mayer, “Toward a Science of Society,” op. cit., pp. 172–173; “The Techniques, Basic Concepts, and Preconceptions of Science and Their Relation to Social Study,” op. cit., pp. 458–462.

72 For further details regarding such borrowings, see Pitirim Sorokin, “Contemporary Sociological Theories,” Harpers, New York, 1928, pp. 3–37. Cf., also, E. Spektorsky, “The Problems of Social Physics in the Seventeenth Century,” in Russian, vol. I, Imperial Warsaw University, Warsaw, 1910, pp. 554–558, vol. II, S. Kul-zhenko, Kiev, 1917, pp. 420–422; Samuel von Pufendorf, “Elementorum Jurisprudentiae Universalis,” Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1931, 2 vol. (reproduced from edition of 1672). Regarding Erhard Weigel's views, see Spektorsky, op. cit., pp. 488–563 (545–546). Cf., also, Antonio Portuondo y Barcelo, “Essais de Mécanique Sociale,” M. Giard, Paris, 1925; V. M. Bechtereff, “Collective Reflexology,” in Russian, Kolos, Petrograd, 1921, pp. 221–420 (225); H. C. Carey, “Principles of Social Science,” Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1858–1860, 3 vols., vol. I, pp. 41–43, vol. II, pp. 41–42, vol. III, pp. 466–468, passim; also “The Unity of Law,” H. C. Baird, Philadelphia, 1872, pp. 127–129; Johann F. Herbart, “A Text-Book in Psychology,” trans. by M. K. Smith, D. Appleton, New York, 1891; A. J. Lótka, “Elements of Physical Biology,” Williams & Wilkins, Baltimore, 1925, pp. 13–17; Mitchell, “Bentham's Felicific Calculus,” op. cit.; Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 11–23; Léon Winiarski, “La Méthode Mathématique dans la Sociologie et dans l'Economie Politique,” La Revue Socialiste, vol. XX, 1894, pp. 716–730, and other articles by Winiarksi along similar lines.

73 Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 29–36; also L. I. Petrajitzsky, “Introduction to the Study of Law and Morality,” in Russian, Erlich, St. Petersburg, 3rd ed., 1908, pp. 65–72.

74 Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 196–207. Cf., also, R. B. Perry, “General Theory of Value,” Longmans Green, New York, 1926, pp. 447–452, in which, with delightful irony, he pictures the results of the organismic view of society in the following words:

“It is clear that if the analogy between human society and the cellular composition of the organism is adopted, in so far as an aggregation of men are organized in the image of a man, it must be at the expense of their manhood. If men assume the rôle of cells or organs they must forfeit personal autonomy or delegate it to one of their members. …

“In short, the several members of a society can be embraced within one person only in so far as all members save one are subordinated to the purpose which that one has for them. They will enter into the personally integrated society not as interests but as objects. …

“A whole is sometimes more highly integrated than its members, as in the relation of the plant to its component cells; and sometimes less integrated, as in the relation of the colony to its component ants. Combining these two types of relationship, we get the case in which an individual whole is both higher than its own constituent members and also higher than the whole of which it is itself a member. The progression from cell to colony is not a steadily ascending progression, as is readily and mistakenly supposed, but an ascent and a descent in which the highest point is reached half-way. This intermediate and highest point, is the animal or man.”

“John of Salisbury, in the twelfth century, and Nicholas of Cusa, in the fifteenth, made especially notable attempts to correlate the parts of the ‘body natural’ and the ‘body politic.’ According to the former writer, ‘the prince is the head, the senate the heart, the court the sides, officers and judges are the eyes, ears and tongue, the executive officials are the unarmed and the army is the armed hand, the financial department is belly and intestines, landfolk, handicraftsmen and the like are the feet.’ When these feet are in distress, as is so often the case, the state has gout. The ecclesiastics, using the same method, argued against the claims of the state, that if the emperor as well as the pope were a head, the organism of mankind would be a ‘two-headed monster, an animal biceps.’ The state, owing to the number of its feet, turned out to be a centipede; and the growing strength of the imperial party forced the conviction that mankind did in fact have two heads. Thus the outcome of an effort to enhance the dignity of men was to conceive them as members or organs of a bicephalous centipede.”

75 Sorokin, op. cit., pp. 195, 207–213.

76 J. B. Clark, “The Philosophy of Wealth,” Ginn, Boston, 1886, pp. 38, 81–83, 86–87; “Distribution of Wealth,” Macmillan, New York, 1899, pp. 46, 227, 378; “Essentials of Economic Theory, ” Macmillan, New York, 1907. Cf., also, E. R. A. Seligman, “Social Elements in the Theory of Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, May, 1901, pp. 321–347; and B. M. Anderson, Jr., “Social Value,” Houghton Mifflin, Boston, 1911.

77 Seligman, op. cit., pp. 323–346; also B. M. Anderson, Jr., op. cit.

78 Joseph Schumpeter, “On the Concept of Social Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, February, 1909, pp. 213–232. Cf., also, his “Das Wesen und Hauptinhalt der Theoretischen Nationalökonomie,” Duncker and Humbolt, Leipzig, 1908.

79 H. J. Davenport, “Social Productivity Versus Private Acquisition,” Quarterly Journal of Economics, November, 1910, p. 96. Cf., also, his “Cost and Its Significance,” American Economic Review, Dec., 1911, pp. 724–752, and his “Value and Distribution,” University of Chicago Press, Chicago, 1908.

80 Davenport, “Social Productivity Versus Private Acquisition,” op. cit., pp. 106–118.

81 The substance of this concluding section, together with a brief epitome of the argument of preceding sections, was presented at the St. Louis meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, January 2, 1936, under the title of “New and Old Economic Doctrines.”

81a Cf., Edward H. Chamberlin, “The Theory of Monopolistic Competition,” Harvard University Press, Cambridge, 1933; Joan Robinson, “The Economics of Imperfect Competition ” Macmillan, New York, 1933; C. J. Ratzlaff, “The Theory of Free Competition,” University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 1936; Arthur R. Burns, “The Decline of Competition”, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1936; also the bibliographies of Ratzlaff and Burns at the end of their works.

82 Cf., H. G. Moulton, “The Formation of Capital,” The Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C., 1935.

83 Cf., R. B. Perry, “General Theory of Value,” Longmans Green, New York, 1926; also, the research activities of the National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc., New York City, and of The Brookings Institution, Washington, D. C.

84 J. M. Clark, “Recent Developments in Economics,” in E. C. Hayes' “Recent Developments in the Social Sciences,” Lippincott, Philadelphia, 1927, pp. 253, 305–306.