IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/ajecsc/v64y2005i3p793-826.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

“Breed Out the Unfit and Breed In the Fit”

Author

Listed:
  • Annie L. Cot

Abstract

Fisher's virulent positions on such themes as “race degeneration”, the necessity of sterilization measures for certain categories of the American population, and his urgent call for the control of the genetic quality of new immigrants are hardly consistent with the opalescent subtlety of academic disputes over the nature of capital and interest. Although Fisher repeats it often: in his work, this question of the nature of capital and interest is directly linked to eugenic assumptions and analysis. This second body of Fisherian work illuminates the strong epistemological and theoretical references in Fisher's work as an economist. This paper addresses this question through three major themes: the constant denunciation of a «racial decay» of the American population and its corollary: the project of setting up a «scientific humaniculture»; the plea against the eugenic effects of World War I, and the then haunting question of the closing of the «Golden Door».

Suggested Citation

  • Annie L. Cot, 2005. "“Breed Out the Unfit and Breed In the Fit”," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 793-826, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:64:y:2005:i:3:p:793-826
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00392.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00392.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1536-7150.2005.00392.x?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Thomas C. Leonard, 2003. "“More Merciful and Not Less Effective”: Eugenics and American Economics in the Progressive Era," History of Political Economy, Duke University Press, vol. 35(4), pages 687-712, Winter.
    2. James A. Field, 1911. "The Progress of Eugenics," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 26(1), pages 1-67.
    3. Fisher, Irving, 1907. "The Rate of Interest," History of Economic Thought Books, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, number fisher1907.
    4. Frank H. Knight, 1931. "Professor Fisher's Interest Theory: A Case in Point," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 39(2), pages 176-176.
    5. Irving Fisher, 1916. "Some Impending National Problems," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 24(7), pages 694-694.
    6. Veblen, Thorstein, 1908. "Fisher's Capital and Income," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 23.
    7. Walker, Francis Amasa, 1896. "Restriction from Immigration," History of Economic Thought Articles, McMaster University Archive for the History of Economic Thought, vol. 77, pages 822-830, June.
    8. Peart, Sandra J. & Levy, David M., 2003. "Denying Human Homogeneity: Eugenics & The Making of Post-Classical Economics," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 25(3), pages 261-288, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Curott, Nicholas A. & Snow, Nicholas A., 2022. "Nudging To Prohibition? A Reassessment of Irving Firsher’s Economics of Prohibition in Light of Modern Behavioral Economics," OSF Preprints dv97k, Center for Open Science.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Terenzio Maccabelli, 2008. "Social Anthropology in Economic Literature at the End of the 19th Century: Eugenic and Racial Explanations of Inequality," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 67(3), pages 481-527, July.
    2. Avi J. Cohen, 2003. "Retrospectives: Whatever Happened to the Cambridge Capital Theory Controversies?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 17(1), pages 199-214, Winter.
    3. Thomas C. Leonard, 2005. "Protecting Family and Race," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(3), pages 757-791, July.
    4. Bryer, Rob, 2013. "Americanism and financial accounting theory – Part 3: Adam Smith, the rise and fall of socialism, and Irving Fisher's theory of accounting," CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON ACCOUNTING, Elsevier, vol. 24(7), pages 572-615.
    5. Christian Johnson & George G Kaufman, 2007. "Un banco, con cualquier otro nombre…," Boletín, CEMLA, vol. 0(4), pages 185-199, Octubre-d.
    6. Irving Fisher Committee, 2003. "Abstracts of papers to be presented at the 54th ISI Session, Berlin, August 2003," IFC Bulletins, Bank for International Settlements, number 15.
    7. Navarrete, Eduardo, 2012. "Modeling optimal pine stands harvest under stochastic wood stock and price in Chile," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(C), pages 54-59.
    8. Hakan Berument & Nildag Basak Ceylan & Hasan Olgun, 2007. "Inflation uncertainty and interest rates: is the Fisher relation universal?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(1), pages 53-68.
    9. Mabid Ali Al-Jarhi, 2020. "Reforming Islamic Finance إصلاح المالية الإسلامية," Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Islamic Economics, King Abdulaziz University, Islamic Economics Institute., vol. 33(2), pages 101-107, July.
    10. Yunhao Chen & Xiaoquan Jiang & Bong-Soo Lee, 2015. "Long-Term Evidence on the Effect of Aggregate Earnings on Prices," Financial Management, Financial Management Association International, vol. 44(2), pages 323-351, June.
    11. James Tobin, 2005. "Fisher's Introductory Text," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 201-205, January.
    12. Olivier Rousse, 2008. "On the bias of yield-based capital budgeting methods," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 7(9), pages 1-8.
    13. Lee, Shun-Chung, 2011. "Using real option analysis for highly uncertain technology investments: The case of wind energy technology," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 15(9), pages 4443-4450.
    14. Mitra, Tapan & Sorger, Gerhard, 2013. "On Ramseyʼs conjecture," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 148(5), pages 1953-1976.
    15. Robert W. Dimand, 2012. "The Roots of the Present are in the Past: The Relation of Postwar Developments in Macroeconomics to Interwar Business Cycle and Monetary Theory," Chapters, in: Thomas Cate (ed.), Keynes’s General Theory, chapter 5, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    16. Gino Favero & Gherardo Piacitelli, 2024. "Irr and equivalence of cash-flow streams, loans, and portfolios of bonds," Decisions in Economics and Finance, Springer;Associazione per la Matematica, vol. 47(2), pages 379-399, December.
    17. Fulli-Lemaire, Nicolas, 2013. "Alternative inflation hedging strategies for ALM," MPRA Paper 43755, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Gylfason, Thorvaldur & Tómasson, Helgi & Zoega, Gylfi, 2016. "Around the world with Irving Fisher," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 232-243.
    19. Siven, Claes-Henric, 2000. "Analytical Foundations of Erik Lindahl's Monetary Analysis, 1924-30," Research Papers in Economics 2000:14, Stockholm University, Department of Economics.
    20. Lee, Shun-Chung & Shih, Li-Hsing, 2010. "Renewable energy policy evaluation using real option model -- The case of Taiwan," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 67-78, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:ajecsc:v:64:y:2005:i:3:p:793-826. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0002-9246 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.