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Bert Mosselmans' editorial puzzles me for several reasons. Here are two. 
 
First, his title and his first line or two seem to claim that he is  
making some general statement about the marginal revolution, but the  
bulk of his editorial compares Malthus and Ricardo on limits to growth  
with Jevon's concern about coal. But Jevon's worry about coal is surely  
specific to him rather than being typical of the other participants in  
the 'revolution', and has little or nothing to do with his marginalism. 
 
Second, the notion of scarcity in modern economics is not about limits  
to growth. It says that things have an opportunity cost - we can only  
have more of one thing if we have less of something else. By dating  
goods, we can add that we can have more at one date only by having less  
(than we otherwise would) at some other date. That is true whether  
there are ultimate limits to growth or not. It was recognized, at least  
implicitly, by the classics - see Smith treating parsimony as an  
alternative to present enjoyment, or his assumption that productive and  
unproductive labour are alternatives. 
 
Tony Brewer ([log in to unmask]) 
 
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