Mason Gaffney writes the following about Wicksteed:
> Philip Wicksteed, an avowed fan and supporter
> of George, borrowed the title of a George chapter, "The correlation and
> coordination of these laws (of distribution)" for his more sophisticated
> work on distribution among the factors of production. The mathematics is
> Wicksteed's and Euler's, but the inspiration came from George - along with
> the word, "factor". and
> Wicksteed, a
> George fan, has been touted as one who replaced the residual concept of rent
> with factor symmetry, and thus somehow undercut George. J.B. Clark, who
> used Wicksteed's ideas as a club to beat George, tried to give that
> impression. That is not what Wicksteed said, though, unless you cherrypick
> his words and give them a certain spin he clearly did not intend.
>
I am not an expert on Wicksteed, but all of the obvious first hand
sources of which I am aware seem to contradict these views -- most
especially that he believed that land deserved special treatment as a
factor of production and that supported anything resembling a single
tax. Let me just refer Mason to two primary sources. First, Wicksteed
summarizes Book 2, Chapter 6 of his Common Sense of Political Economy.
His chapter is entitled "THE DIAGRAMMATIC EXPOSITION OF THE LAW OF RENT
AND ITS IMPLICATIONS."
Summary.�/The current exposition of the law of rent, based on a diagram
of "decreasing returns" to labour, for a constant of land, mistakes the
characteristics of the constant for those of land. Hence many errors in
nomenclature and in thought have arisen. It is equally easy and equally
legitimate to represent the same facts in the form of a diagram with
labour for the constant and land for the variable. This will shew that
both rent and wages are shares in the product determined by marginal
efficiency; and that when all the factors have received their share in
this marginal distribution there is no surplus or residuum at all.
/
One would be wise to also check Book 1, Chapter 9./
/http://www.econlib.org/library/Wicksteed/wkCSContents.html/
/Second, let me refer Mason to Wicksteed's Scope and Method of Political
Economy/
On the present occasion severe selection and limitation is, of course,
necessary, and I think we cannot do better than take up a few of the
current phrases, or conceptions and diagrammatic illustrations connected
with the phenomenon of rent. Antecedently we must expect that as there
is no theoretical difference between the part played by land and that
played by other factors of production (or more direct ministrants to
enjoyment), so there can be no general assertion about rent and land
which is at once true and distinctive; for, if true, it must be based on
that aspect of land which expresses its function in a unit common, say,
to capital, and which brings its differential significance, upon which
all depends, under the same law; and therefore it cannot be distinctive
of land.
Let us test the truth of these anticipations. Ricardo's celebrated law
of rent really asserts nothing except that the superior article fetches
the superior price, in proportion to its superiority; and it is obvious
that all "superiorities" in land, whether arising from "inalienable"
properties or from expenditure of capital, tell in exactly the same way
upon the rent.
/http://socserv.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/wicksteed/scope.html
There is not a great deal of difference between Wicksteed and Davenport
on fundamental issues, in my view. Of course, if one were interested in
the history of word "entrepreneur," she might miss Wicksteed entirely;
whereas if she were interested in the history of the word "undertaker,"
she might miss Davenport. Words are words.
Speaking for myself, if I wanted to hire cherry-pickers, I would send my
foreman to Camp George.
With humble respect,
Pat Gunning
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