IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/usi/wpaper/810.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Frank W. Taussig and Carl S. Joslyn on the social origins of American business leaders. A chapter in the history of social science at Harvard

Author

Listed:
  • Luca Fiorito
  • Massimiliano Vatiero

Abstract

In their 1932 volume American Business Leaders: A Study in Social Origins and Social Stratification, Frank W. Taussig and Carl S Joslyn, then a young Harvard graduate, argued that success in business depended more on innate superiority than on other environmental factors such as financial aid, influential connections, and formal education. The aim of this paper is to analyze the main contentions of Taussig and Joslyn, as well the intellectual genesis of, and the general reactions to, this controversial volume. Although our main focus is on Taussig and Joslyn, other figures, all directly affiliated with Harvard, will play a decisive role in our narrative—the economist Thomas Nixon Carver, the psychologist William McDougall, and the sociologist Pitirim Aleksandrovic Sorokin. This makes the scope of this paper in many respects broader than its title may suggest—in the sense that it will allow us to place a work like American Business Leaders within the context of an important strand of social science research at Harvard during the interwar years.

Suggested Citation

  • Luca Fiorito & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2019. "Frank W. Taussig and Carl S. Joslyn on the social origins of American business leaders. A chapter in the history of social science at Harvard," Department of Economics University of Siena 810, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    • Handle: RePEc:usi:wpaper:810
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://repec.deps.unisi.it/quaderni/810.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Asso, Pier Francesco & Fiorito, Luca, 2004. "Human Nature and Economic Institutions: Instinct Psychology, Behaviorism, and the Development of American Institutionalism," Journal of the History of Economic Thought, Cambridge University Press, vol. 26(4), pages 445-477, December.
    2. Tobin, James, 1985. "Neoclassical Theory in America: J. B. Clark and Fisher," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(6), pages 28-38, December.
    3. Miller, William, 1949. "American Historians and the Business Elite," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 184-208, November.
    4. Wesley C. Mitchell, 1910. "The Rationality of Economic Activity," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 18(3), pages 197-197.
    5. J A. Schumpeter & A. H. Cole & E. S. Mason, 1941. "Frank William Taussig," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 55(3), pages 337-363.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Christian Cordes, 2014. "There are several ways to incorporate evolutionary concepts into economic thinking," Papers on Economics and Evolution 2014-02, Philipps University Marburg, Department of Geography.
    2. Christian Cordes, 2019. "The promises of a naturalistic approach: how cultural evolution theory can inform (evolutionary) economics," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 29(4), pages 1241-1262, September.
    3. Tiia-Lotta Pekkanen, 2021. "Institutions and Agency in the Sustainability of Day-to-Day Consumption Practices: An Institutional Ethnographic Study," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 168(2), pages 241-260, January.
    4. Seth D. Zimmerman, 2019. "Elite Colleges and Upward Mobility to Top Jobs and Top Incomes," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 109(1), pages 1-47, January.
    5. Davanzati, Guglielmo Forges, 2018. "Structural change driven by institutions: Thorstein veblen revised," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 105-110.
    6. Luca fiorito & Massimiliano Vatiero, 2018. "Wesley Clair Mitchell and the “Illiberal Reformers”: A Documentary Note," Department of Economics University of Siena 783, Department of Economics, University of Siena.
    7. Malcolm Rutherford, 2001. "Institutional Economics: Then and Now," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(3), pages 173-194, Summer.
    8. Richard Bluhm & Adam Szirmai, 2011. "Institutions, Inequality and Growth: A review of theory and evidence on the institutional determinants of growth and inequality," Papers inwopa634, Innocenti Working Papers.
    9. Argandoña, Antonio, 2013. "Irving Fisher: un gran economista," IESE Research Papers D/1082, IESE Business School.
    10. Spender, J. C., 2024. "Simon and Knight," MPRA Paper 120891, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. Malcolm Rutherford, 1987. "Wesley Mitchell: Institutions and Quantitative Methods," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 13(1), pages 63-73, Jan-Mar.
    12. Elise S. Brezis & François Crouzet, 2004. "The Role of Higher Education Institutions: Recruitment of Elites and Economic Growth," CESifo Working Paper Series 1360, CESifo.
    13. Fiorito, Luca, 2022. "The “Social Value” Debate: An Early Chapter in the History of American Marginalism," OSF Preprints kznuj, Center for Open Science.
    14. James Tobin, 2005. "Irving Fisher (1867–1947)," American Journal of Economics and Sociology, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(1), pages 19-42, January.
    15. Fazıl KAYIKÇI & Mustafa KESGİN, 2022. "Contributions of Institutional Economics to Economic Thought," Yildiz Social Science Review, Yildiz Technical University, vol. 8(1), pages 52-64.
    16. Loaiza Quintero, Osmar Leandro, 2007. "Comentarios sobre el enfoque de la Economía Institucional [Comments on the approach of Institutional Economics]," MPRA Paper 14047, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    17. Stavros Drakopoulos & Ioannis Katselidis, 2015. "From Edgeworth to econophysics: a methodological perspective," Journal of Economic Methodology, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(1), pages 77-95, March.
    18. Joseph Persky, 2000. "The Neoclassical Advent: American Economics at the Dawn of the 20th Century," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 14(1), pages 95-108, Winter.
    19. Luc Arrondel & André Masson & Daniel Verger, 2004. "De la théorie à une enquête méthodologique originale," Économie et Statistique, Programme National Persée, vol. 374(1), pages 21-51.
    20. Angela Ambrosino, 2017. "The Role of Agents’ Propensity toward Conformity and Independence in the Process of Institutional Change," STOREPapers 1_2017, Associazione Italiana per la Storia dell'Economia Politica - StorEP.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Taussig; Frank Williams; eugenics; hereditarianism; business leaders; Harvard;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • B1 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925
    • B15 - Schools of Economic Thought and Methodology - - History of Economic Thought through 1925 - - - Historical; Institutional; Evolutionary

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:usi:wpaper:810. 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: Fabrizio Becatti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/desieit.html .

    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.