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The “Social Value” Debate: An Early Chapter in the History of American Marginalism

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  • Fiorito, Luca

Abstract

This paper provides a reconstruction of the debate on “social value” among early marginalists in the US. This will be done in three steps. The first section analyses John B. Clark’s approach to social value as presented in his Distribution of Wealth; the second section deals with other influential contemporaries who adopted a similar social value perspective, with a main focus on Edwin R. A. Seligman; the third section discusses those critics who, with due differences in emphasis and style, animated the debate over social value, reviewing (among others) the contributions of Herbert J. Davenport, Joseph Schumpeter, Benjamin Anderson, John Maurice Clark, and George P. Watkins, the final section presents some conclusions.

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  • Fiorito, Luca, 2022. "The “Social Value” Debate: An Early Chapter in the History of American Marginalism," OSF Preprints kznuj, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:kznuj
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/kznuj
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    References listed on IDEAS

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