Pat Gunning wrote:
>Nicholas Theocarakis informs me in private 
>correspondence that his quotes were meant to 
>show that Clark was an apologist, presumably for 
>the upper class, the rich, or some such. I would 
>like to interpret the passages in a different 
>way. I include the quotes here so that you will 
>not have to refer back to his email:


1. Is Clark an apologist for the rich, or does he 
uphold the moral order of society? My own reading 
is that he is both, but at different times. The 
Distribution of Wealth seems to me to be aimed at 
Henry George, and he reaches the rather odd 
conclusion (first expounded by Nassau Senior) 
that all incomes--land rent, interest, and 
wages--are rents. And insofar as he upholds 
economic rents, he upholds the rich. Economic 
rent is hard to justify, so the next best thing 
is to make of everything an economic rent.

2. I would not be quick to read "social" where 
Clark says "moral." Indeed, he published in 
purely religious journals the claim that he had 
discovered the hidden laws of providence, the 
very hand of God, in the workings of the 
Distribution of Wealth. He had found the true 
"natural law" (natural law had become, since the 
Enlightenment, mere naturalism).

3. On the other hand, Clark campaigned for 
minimum wage laws, an idea unpopular with his 
colleagues at the time, and quite contrary to the 
conclusions of The Distribution of Wealth. And he 
could write, in 1914, Social Justice without 
Socialism. The program of this work was, according to one review:

His program of reform would include the
initiative, the referendum, the recall, and the short ballot. The more direct
participation of the people in government, he believes, would make possible
the enactment of economic and social legislation that would promote social
justice. These laws would be designed primarily to benefit the poor man.
To satisfy those who now complain of their poverty, the author would favor
prohibition of child labor, except under certain 
restrictions, regulation of the
hours of work of adult employees in some occupations, the revision of the
protective tariff, the reform of the banking and currency system, and the
establishment of public works to solve the problem of unemployment. Laws
restricting the power of monopoly, however, would 
he most efficacious in removing
injustice in the distribution of the social dividend. This scheme of social
justice would halt before reaching the boundaries of socialism. Socialists
decry interest on capital as unjust, but 
Professor Clark suggests it is right for
a man to pay interest for the use of capital because he can catch more fish
with a hook and line from a canoe than he can with his bare hands. The
wages of the lower classes can be raised by forces which tend to increase the
amount of capital; not by the practice of 
sabotage. (The Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 
22, No. 7. (Jul., 1914), p. 715.)

Sounds a bit like the program that Roosevelt adopted.

4. I don't recall anywhere in "Distribution" 
where he talks about the initial distributions of 
wealth. He accepts property as he finds it as a mere given.

5. When you say "property," what precisely do you 
mean, since that is an institution with a varied 
history, and many forms. Our current form does 
not become dominant until the 16th century and is 
not codified until the Statute of Frauds 
supercedes nearly all other forms of property 
(1677); and the decisive form of modern ownership 
(the corporation as legal person) traces only to 
1876 and a bit of judicial overreach and legislating from the bench.

6. The claim that capitalism rewards people 
according to their marginal product has always 
struck me as odd, since the claim is based on 
contract. But contracts do not marginalize 
productivity, but power. Marginal product may 
itself be a "power," where skills are in short 
supply and critical need. But normally, there are 
other powers at work in contract and there is 
nothing in contract theory which says that 
productivity will be rewarded rather than that 
which contracts normally arbitrate: the relative 
powers of the contracting parties. Does a CEO 
makes 500 times what the line worker makes not 
because he has 500 times the productivity or 500 times the power?

7. I am curious about the title you gave your 
post: "The Emergence of Entrepreneur Thinking." 
Has there every been a period in history devoid 
of entrepreneurial thinking? Every age has its 
entrepreneurs, but different rules in different 
ages reward different kinds of entrepreneurial 
activity. Some channel rewards to the soldier, 
some to the land farmer, some to the tax farmer, 
and so forth, but different rules call forth different entrepreneurs.


John C. M?daille