The Distribution of Wealth: A Theory of Wages, Interest, and ProfitsWhat would be the rate of wages, if labor and capital were to remain fixed in quantity, if improvements in the mode of production were to stop, if the consolidating of capital were to cease and if the wants of consumers were never to alter? The question assumes, of course, that industry shall go on, and that, notwithstanding a paralysis of the forces of progress, wealth shall continue to be created under the influence of a perfectly unobstructed competition. -from the Preface John Bates Clark was the first American economist with an international reputation-this revolutionary 1899 work is what brought him that distinction. In clear, lucid language that makes his economic philosophy so plain we take it for granted today, Clark lays out his Marginal Productivity Theory of Distribution, a rebuttal to Marx and an apologetic for capitalism. Insisting that in a competitive market economy, all work is fully and fairly recompensed and all labor and capital are, in a very real sense, equal components, Clark shattered then widely held theories of economics with his groundbreaking thesis. And his work continues to influence the global financial situation today. American economist JOHN BATES CLARK (1847-1938), who also wrote the significant The Philosophy of Wealth (1885), was professor of political economy at Columbia University and one of the founders of the American Economic Association. The prestigious John Bates Clark Medal for economic thought is named for him. |
Contents
CHAPTER I | 1 |
CHAPTER II | 10 |
CHAPTER III | 25 |
THE BASIS OF DISTRIBUTION IN UNIVERSAL ECONOMIC Laws | 36 |
CHAPTER V | 52 |
CHAPTER VII | 77 |
HOW THE SPECIFIC PRODUCT OF LABOR MAY BE DISTIN | 95 |
There is an extensive margin of utilization of all produc | 116 |
CHAPTER XVI | 231 |
CHAPTER XVII | 246 |
CHAPTER XVIII | 265 |
CHAPTER XIX | 276 |
CHAPTER XXI | 319 |
CHAPTER XXII | 334 |
CHAPTER XXIII | 354 |
enter into price But the amount of any agent in | 365 |
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Common terms and phrases
actual amount of capital apportioned capi capital-goods capitalists circulating capital commodity competition concrete condition consumers consumption cost create distribution division dollars duction ductive earnings effect element embody employer entire entirety entrepreneurs equal existence fact final increment final productivity final unit final utility fixed capital friction fund gain ginal grade groups and sub-groups income incre increase increment of capital increment of labor industry instruments of production intensive margin kind labor and capital land last unit law of final law of value less marginal measured ment mill move natural natural prices no-rent nomic normal owner permanent principle product of labor productive power profit quantity rate of wages reduce rent social capital social labor society standard static law sumers supply tends things tion true capital unit of capital unit of labor wages and interest wheat whole workers
Popular passages
Page vi - IT is the purpose of this work to show that the distribution of the income of society is controlled by a natural law, and that this law, if it worked without friction, would give to every agent of production the amount of wealth which that agent creates.
Page ix - It was the claim advanced by Mr. Henry George, that wages are fixed by the product which a man can create by tilling rentless land, that first led me to seek a method by which the product of labor everywhere may be disentangled from the product of cooperating agents and separately identified...
Page ix - ... that first led me to seek a method by which the product of labor everywhere may be disentangled from the product of cooperating agents and separately identified; and it was this quest which led to the attainment of the law that is here presented, according to which the wages of all labor tend, under perfectly free competition, to equal the product that is separately attributable to the labor.