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| on the use of the differential calculus etc. | 95 |
the incident efforts and sacrifices, in prospect rather than in the result at the stage of «quasirent».1 Professor Pareto may be quite right in his surmise2 that the actual remuneration of employers on an average is very small. It is the deduction of that tendency to zero from the theory of Competition that I cannot follow. Let me take another illustration. Suppose a set of competing landlords as before, each owning a portion of the land with which may be supposed limited in quantity and all of the same quality. But instead of competing cultivators, suppose now citizens competing for sites of «bungalows» and gardens in which to take holiday. We have once more a typical case of simple exchange between Xs and Ys, a marginal price affording a maximum of advantage in the sense above explained3. That character of a market would be maintained even though it were true, in accordance with the shrewd remark of Sidgwick that human beings have a tendency to overvalue leisure as a source of happiness4. I am aware that Professor Pareto would not admit the parallel suggested between Consumers’ and Producers’ surplus5. But with reference to the purpose in hand I fail to see the difference. However, I am quite prepared to find that there is no material disagreement between us, that we are looking at different sides of the same shield — I at the gold side, he at a side which is devoid of all precious metal.
Marginal Productivity. — I go on to consider some objections which, though not so serious, on a question of pure theory, as the dissent of a great mathematical economist, yet deserve and may reward attention. I refer to the
- ↑ Principles of Economics. Book VI chap. VIII. (edition 4).
- ↑ , referring to certain Belgian Statistics. See the Hungarian statistics compiled by Korösi to which reference is made in the Economic Journal, Vol. XII page 251, and compare Marshall, Loc. cit. Book VI. chap. VIII s. 8, which may be considered the locus classicus on the subject.
- ↑ Above page 84 et seq.
- ↑ Political Economy. Book III. chap. 7.
- ↑ According to Professor Pareto the producer is obliged to remain on the «line of indifference» corresponding to «complete Transformation» and null remuneration. «Il y a là une difference essentielle avec les phénomènes qui se réfèrent avec gouts». («, and context»).
