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