Economic essays

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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

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Title:: A statistical method for measuring "marginal utility" and testing the justice of a progressive income tax / Irving Fisher

Collection:: Economics Books

180 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK i mT a ee . this answer is that, in actual practical human life, we do pro- ceed on just such assumptions. Academically we may have philosophic doubts as to bridging the gulf between mind and mind, or even between one time and another time for the same ind. But somehow, we do bridge those gulfs. Human inter- : largely consists in so doing even if we cannot tell how we o it. The housewife knows the wants of her husband and chil- ren almost as well as she knows her own, and we may well take or granted that the other woman beside her, unless abnormal or nusual, has comparable wants both as an individual and as the presentative of her own family zroup. ANE hilosophic doubt is right and proper, but the problems of life annot, and do not, wait. One can even doubt the philosophic ropriety of our measurements of space, matter and time, and in act, Einstein has raised very definite doubts and possibly even overthrown what Newton seemed to have established. But prac- ically we go on measuring, and building in space and time, nd, for all practical purposes, our unproven ideas work. o economists cannot afford to be too academic and shirk the reat practical problems pressing upon them merely because these appen to touch on unsolved, perhaps insoluble, philosophical roblems. The psychologist has set the example by becoming a ‘behaviorist.” He can thereby deal practically with phenomena he essential nature of which he confesses he cannot fathom. y common sense we cut our gordian knots. We may not know eally what goes on in the mind of a dog, but practically we can ell by his behavior when he is hungry, or pleased. We have some- how learned to interpret the wagging of his tail, and the sound of his bark. Even more have we learned to interpret the feelings f another human being. Any normal housewife knows the heart’s esire of every member of her flock. SE Facing our problem, then, as a practical common sense problem, ather than as an academic and philesophical one, I venture to et up as a working hypothesis, that similar families have similar ants, that in particular, two average American working- en’s families which are of the same size and age and sex eon- titution, and which have the same food budgets will also have he same want-for-one-more unit of food; or again, that tro ypical American workingmen’s families which have the same ousing accommodation (assuming there has been opportunity to ne hm

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