MICHIGAN ACADEMY OF SCIENCE. 145 



Professor Fisher of Yale is tlie leading exponent of the mathematical 

 method. As statisticians Mayo-Smith and Wright, — now deceased, — 

 Dewey. Willcox, and Bailey are among the best known Americans of 

 recent times. 



There can be no doubt of a strong tendency among American econom- 

 ists to emphasize psychological analysis. After 1885 the thought of 

 Jevons and the Austrian school took firm hold, and American economics 

 has come to its recently acquired place of prominence largely through 

 independent development of parts of this field. Accordingly it is prob- 

 able that three of our four or five leading theoricians are Clark, Patten, 

 and Fisher. 



Professor John Bates Clark is admitted by many to be the greatest con- 

 structive general theorist that America has yet produced. His claim to 

 some originality in developing the significance of marginal utility is 

 strong and his name will ever be associated with the marginal product- 

 ivity analysis in static distribution. Many of the most promising of the 

 younger economists have been much influenced by him, and while several 

 of his main ideas are accepted by few, his calm, clear analysis has been 

 very suggestive and has done much to clear up distribution problems. 



It is not unlikely that Clark received some stimulus from Bastiat, 

 and he himself refers to the intiuence of Henry George.^ He must also 

 have gathered ideas from Jevons and the Austrians. For the rest, he fell 

 under the sway of the idea, current among sociologists and economists 

 of the historico-sociological type, that society is an organism. Add to 

 this background Professor Clark's great power of sustained abstract 

 speculation and we have some of the chief factors in his work. 



In his Philosophy of TFcf/i//j (1885) the two main ideas are that the 

 prevalent theory of value misconceived the part played by utility, and 

 that society is an organism to be treated as a unit in discussing processes 

 of wealth distribution. Clark, distinguishes absolute from effective util- 

 ity, defining the latter as "power to modify our subjective condition, 

 under actual circumstances, and. .. .mentally measured by supposing 

 something which we possess to be annihilated, or something which we 

 lack to be attained."- Market value is measured by this utility estimated 

 by society considered as one great isolated being.' 



Clark also emphasized the limits set to com])etition in modern society, 

 aj>pealing to a. more rational means of eft'ective distribution. 



It is by his Distrihu'tion of Wealth, j)ublished in 1899, that Clark is 

 best known. Put in a nut shell it is the idea of the book that in a 

 '"Static" condition the factors of production receive shares correspond- 

 ing to the productivity of their final or marginal increments, the procei-is 

 being ^'controlled by a natural law." 



The social view])oint being taken, and society being regarded as an 

 organism, it follows that distribution and exchange — with value — are 

 included in the round of jiroduction. Distribution has three stages: the 

 division of social income, first, among various groups of industries, then 

 among sub-groups, and finally among the factors of production within 



^Distribution of Wealth, preface, p. VIII. George's idea tliat wages are fixed by the product 

 which a man can create by tilling no-rent land. 



-P. 78. Compare Distribution of Wealth, p. .376. This statement is subject to the same 

 criticism as is Menger's. 



3P. 82. 



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