>From Carl Menger's Principles:
In the early stages of civilization and even later in the case of
small manufactures, entrepreneurial activity is usually performed
by the same economizing individual whose technical labor services
also constitute one of the factors in the production process.
With progressive division of labor and an increase in the size of
enterprises, entrepreneurial activity often occupies his full time.
For this reason, entrepreneurial activity is just as necessary a factor
in the production of goods as technical labor services. It therefore
has the character of a good of higher order, and value too, since
like other goods of higher order it is also generally an economic
good. Hence whenever we wish to determine the present value of
complementary quantities of goods of higher order, the prospective
value of the product determines the total value of all of them
together only if the value of entrepreneurial activity is included in
the total.
Menger, Carl. (1981) Principles of Economics. Translated by James
Dingwall and Bert Hoselitz. New York: New York University Press.
Originally published in German in 1871.
In the translation, the translators refer to "factors in the production
process."
It is also worth mentioning that the investigation of words is hardly as
useful as the investigation of ideas. That Menger understood the idea of
factors of production in the modern sense of the Austrian theory of
value and cost or the marginal productivity theory of distribution is
evident. I did not check Jevons but I must assume that he understood
these also, as did Walfas. However, one should not homogenize these
founders of the idea. Nevertheless, there is a definite break between
the classical economics and neoclassical economics, stemming from the
notion that the value of various factors in the pure market economy is
derived from a combination of (1) the utility of the product to the
consumer and (2) the consumer's spending power. Each of these writers
implied some version of consumer sovereignty.
The Concept of Consumers' Sovereignty
W. H. Hutt
The Economic Journal, Vol. 50, No. 197. (Mar., 1940), pp. 66-77
At JSTOR.
Best wishes,.
Pat Gunning
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