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Reproduction and Scarcity -- Hidden Agenda of the "Marginal Revolution" 
Bert Mosselmans 
Free University of Brussels 
 
The 'marginal revolution' should not be seen as a sudden shock; it should 
rather be described as a gradual process. Jevons should be seen as a 
transitional economist. Autonomous intellectual developments, however, 
can provide only an unsatisfactory explanation. We argue that historical 
actors perceive a changed environment and conclude that existing theories 
no longer are applicable. For this purpose, we examine the difference 
between the perception of the environment in Malthus and Ricardo on the 
one hand, and Jevons on the other - a shift in perspective from a 
reproductive environment with internal scarcity towards a non-reproductive 
environment with external scarcity. In a reproductive environment the 
actions of human beings are responsible for the rise of scarcity, whereas 
in a non-reproductive environment, scarcity is determined externally. 
*Whereas internal scarcity is caused by human actions and hence can be 
dealt with, external scarcity is not due to human actions and cannot 
therefore be avoided.* Although some elements of internal scarcity remain 
present in Jevons, we argue that there is a shift in emphasis on a 
non-reproductive framework with external scarcity. Jevons translates 
'classical' concepts into the new non-reproductive environment. 
 
According to Malthus, the power of population is substantially more 
extensive than the power of the earth to produce subsistence. Since food 
cannot be proportioned to the population, the population should be 
proportioned to the food. The efforts to increase the quantity of food 
should not be relaxed, but it should be combined with another effort. In 
order to reach a controlled balanced growth, the poor should be told the 
true nature of their situation: they are poor because they put 
unmaintainable beings into existence. It is difficult to believe that there 
should be an absolute limit to the growth process. There is only an 
*absolute* limit to the growth *rate*, since the difficulties to improve 
provisions can secure only a slow growth rate of the quantity of food. 
Prudential restraint should ensure that the population remains within the 
limits of this growth rate . When taking Malthus's theodicy into account, 
his belief in the possibility of a real-life 'stationary state' becomes 
highly improbable. The quest for moral perfection, a movement from humanity 
towards God, can never come to an end. Malthus's population theory should 
thus be located within *a reproductive scheme with internal scarcity*. The 
scheme is reproductive, since growth itself is good but should be balanced; 
the scarcity is internal since it is not due to external circumstances, but 
to the misbehaviour of human free will. The stationary state can constitute 
only a temporary stop. 
 
Whereas Malthus stresses the problem of temporary food scarcity, Ricardo 
lays a stronger emphasis on permanent land scarcity due to decreasing 
returns. Since land is not, as food, (at least partly) the product of human 
labour, this gives rise to an externalization of scarcity: the quantity of 
available fertile land cannot be augmented by human actions; it is 
determined externally. Ricardo discusses the problem in his well-known 
chapter on rent. Ricardo's concern is focused on the process of capital 
accumulation, so he examines the external factors that could endanger the 
development. However, Ricardo did not have a pessimistic view of the 
future, since he regarded the stationary state as a theoretical tool to 
identify the termination point of a theoretical growth model, and not as an 
actual real-life possibility. *Given the existence of international 
trade,* the 'stationary state' can only be thought of as a theoretical 
possibility. The situation of ultimate scarcity can be avoided through the 
adoption of free trade, and guilt is laid upon persons unwilling to pursue 
this policy. This all means that Ricardo's scarcity scenario, although 
external, remains internal to some extent: it is at least partly due to 
human action (the enemies of free trade), and can be avoided through 
importation of foreign corn. What prudential restraint is to Malthus, free 
trade is to Ricardo: human actions directed towards the avoidance of 
general scarcity. 
 
According to Jevons, population growth is fostered by the use of coal. 
Economy (thrift) is the main source of progress. Thrift increases 
population, but also enhances the consumption of coal per head: when 
technical innovations reduce the amount of coal needed to produce the same 
product in some branches, profits increase and new capital is attracted. 
This will eventually lead to a situation with an increased consumption of 
coal. An 'elastic limit' will be reached, in accordance with Malthus's 
theory. Coal is limited, not in an absolute manner, but so that supplies 
will be gained with ever-increasing difficulty. Although this scenario 
shows some resemblance to Malthus's, an obvious but most serious difference 
has to be noted: there is no reproduction in a mine. Whereas a piece of 
land will yield a revenue each period, an exhausted mine will remain empty 
forever. The repeal of the corn laws brought help for the British economy, 
but cannot illuminate the coal question. Importation of coal, as well as 
other raw materials, would be against the reciprocal nature of trade. The 
reversal of all other branches, as in the case of corn, was the work of 
coal - coal-trade cannot reverse itself. Contrary to Ricardo, free trade 
does not provide a solution for the Coal Question: there seems to be no 
escape. 
 
The scarce coal resources should become divided over an uncertain period of 
time, in order to prevent permanent scarcity causing a large-scale 
emigration. In *The Coal Question,* a new kind of scarcity originates. 
Coal, the source of energy that rules the mechanism of society, becomes 
wanted. In Jevons the scarcity is external, since it concerns the external 
engine of human progress becoming scarce because of objective societal 
mechanisms which have nothing to do with the misbehaviour of human free 
will. The scarcity remains partly internal, since education could change 
the habits of people, but emphasis is certainly put on the external 
scarcity aspects. Furthermore, Jevons's scheme cannot be located within a 
reproductive framework - in a mine there is no reproduction. Jevons's Coal 
Question should be located within *a non-reproductive scheme with external 
scarcity*. The scarcity is due to external circumstances, namely objective 
societal mechanisms, which are constructed in Jevons's 'revolutionary' 
mechanical economics. This system of mechanics is expressed in *The Theory 
of Political Economy*. 
 
The mechanism of society is determined externally in two ways: by objective 
societal mechanisms founded on objective psychological forces like pleasure 
and pain; and by the existence of an external engine with given supplies. 
Humanity cannot change this situation, but only redistribute an externally 
given scarcity. How can the dramatic shift from internal to external 
scarcity be explained? 
 
According to Hutchison the 'railway boom crisis' of 1847-8 had lasting 
effects on Jevons's life, since it meant the bankruptcy of the family firm. 
In a sense the crisis caused his departure to Australia, since the 
well-paid post as an assayer waiting for him in Sydney could lighten the 
financial problems of his family. The railway crisis did result from the 
pressure of the increasingly vast accumulations of capital for profitable 
investment. The capital glut encouraged bad investments, so the production 
of capital-absorbing railways was growing at a high rate. When profits 
remained absent, the railway production was checked and the demand for 
iron, which had grown during the 'railway boom', fell dramatically. The 
Jevonses were some of the unfortunate iron merchants that were driven into 
bankruptcy. 
 
The attention Jevons devoted to commercial fluctuations is compatible with 
a growing skepticism towards *laissez faire* and market efficiency. Black 
argues that the period from 1862 to 1882 can be seen as the gradual 
replacement of classicism by neoclassicism which was accompanied by a 
transition from a more individualist to a more collectivist approach 
towards economic policy, and a growing questioning of Victorian values of 
self-help and independence. Black traces out this process of transition in 
the work of Jevons. The perception of the economy changed from a directable 
process towards excellence, to an externally determined mechanical system 
in which we can only distribute given means. 
 
We conclude that Jevons's emphasis on external scarcity and 
non-reproductivity, already partly present in Ricardo's economics, 
indicates a major shift in the history of economic thought of the 19th 
century. Internal scarcity remains present to a certain extent, as 
expressed in the possibility for education to extend the period of time in 
which the external scarcity may be redistributed. But the introduction of 
external scarcity changed the outlook of economics until this day. 
 
(I would like to thank Scott Gassler for reading through a previous 
version.) 
 
Suggested References 
 
Black, R.D. Collison (ed.) 1972-81. Papers and Correspondence of William 
Stanley Jevons, 7 Volumes. London and Basingstoke: MacMillan. 
 
Black, R.D. Collison. 1995. Economic Theory and Policy in Context. 
Aldershot: Edgar Elgar. 
 
Jevons, William Stanley. [1865, 1906] 1965. The Coal Question. New York: 
Augustus M. Kelley. 
 
Jevons, William Stanley. [1871,1879] 1965. The Theory of Political Economy. 
New York: Augustus M. Kelley. 
 
Kolb, F.R. 1972. "The Stationary State of Ricardo and Malthus. Neither 
Pessimistic nor Prophetic." Intermountain Economic Review 3(1):17-30. 
 
Malthus, Thomas Robert. [1798] 1986. An Essay on the Principle of 
Population: First Edition. The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus, Volume One. 
London: William Pickering. 
 
Malthus, Thomas Robert. [1826] 1986. An Essay on the Principle of 
Population: Sixth Edition. The Works of Thomas Robert Malthus, Volumes Two 
and Three. London: William Pickering. 
 
Mosselmans, B. 1998. "Cracking the Canon: William Stanley Jevons and the 
Deconstruction of 'Ricardo'." In The Canon in the History of Economics: 
Critical Essays, edited by M. Psalidopoulos. London: Routledge, 
forthcoming. 
 
Peart, Sandra. 1996. The Economics of William Stanley Jevons. London: 
Routledge. 
 
Ricardo, David. [1821] 1957. On the Principles of Political Economy and 
Taxation. 3rd. ed. The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Volume I. 
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 
 
Schabas, Margaret. 1990. A World Ruled by Number: William Stanley Jevons 
and the Rise of Mathematical Economics. Princeton: Princeton Unversity 
Press. 
 
Steedman, Ian. 1997. "Jevons's Theory of Political Economy and the 
'marginalist revolution'." The European Journal of the History of Economic 
Thought 4(1):43-64. 
 
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