Value and Distribution: A Critical and Constructive Study (Classic Reprint)

Excerpt from Value and Distribution

Were it ever important to decide in what degree, if at all, a writer may claim priority in the development of doc trine, the task would be a peculiarly difficult one in the case of the present book. The truth, however, rather than any personal ascription of it being the important matter, it becomes worth while to re?ect that for several decades and, indeed, in the main since the time of Adam Smith, economic theory has been in possession of doctrines enough for a reasonably complete, consistent, and logical system of thought — ii only these doctrines had been, with a wise eclecticism, properly combined and articulated. The emphasis in the present volume upon the entre preneur point of view in the computation of costs and in the analysis of the process by which distributive shares are assigned, has nothing new in it; it was necessary only that the point of view be clearly distinguished, consistently held.