Economic essays

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Monograph

Identifikator:: 1753623200

URN:: urn:nbn:de:zbw-retromon-136107

Document type:: Monograph

Title:: Economic essays

Place of publication:: New York

Publisher:: Macmillan

Year of publication:: 1927

Scope:: viii, 368 S.; Ill., graph. Darst.

Digitisation:: 2021

Collection:: Economics Books

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Document type:: Monograph

Structure type:: Chapter

Title:: Clark's reformulation of the capital concept / Frank A. Fetter

Collection:: Economics Books

140 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK A RL 3 iE (e. g., Dunbar, Macvane, Laughlin, Sumner) a reactionary move- ment toward a new affirmation of Ricardian “orthodoxy” as reformulated in the work of J. S. Mill. Even Francis A. Walker did not develop his father Amasa’s more original American treat- ment, but built his scheme of distributive theory on the older foundations of “land, labor and capital.” There was thus, in the thinking of both the rival schools of thought of that time, a lack of reality and of rootage in the solid earth of our own economic conditions. American economic theorizing suffered then and still suffers from this defect. Clark’s reformation of the capital con- cept, though couched in excessively abstract phrases, was the most vital attempt made in that period to find that reality. It was a new and distinct declaration of independence for American economic thinking. PRE: LE 3. Traces of German Economic Philosophy Almost equally lacking in Clark’s writings are any suggestions that the ideas now under discussion were derived from German sources; but that such is the case can hardly be doubted in view of all the circumstances. Clark was a student in Germany in 1876-1877 and was for a considerable period at Heidelberg under Karl Knies. Clark’s writings in the first ten years after his return, mostly embodied in his Philosophy of Wealth, evidence the deep influence of the ideas of the historical school and of the economic-ethical doctrines then current in Germany. Knies him- self had published in 1873 Das Geld subtitled also “a discussion of capital”; a second, enlarged edition of this was dated 1885. In this work appears a conception of capital strikingly like the one of Clark which we are examining. This conception had become traditional in German economics after the original work of Pro- fessor F. B. W. Hermann * first began to exercise an influence upon German thought. Hermann based his capital concept on property,—though it cannot be said that he succeeded in cléarly distinguishing the thought of the value of property from the thought of the concrete goods. He included not only land within the concept of capital, but also immaterial goods or legal rights to income, even though the claims were upon persons and to services, and not to material goods. Probably the greatest change made by Herrmann was to extend the definition of capital beyond t Staatswirthschaftliche Untersuchungen, etc., Munich, 1832.

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