John Bates Clark

“In the view of the practical man an economist was a person who in his study had reached certain conclusions which were equally unanswerable in themselves and irreconcilable with the facts.” - J.B. Clark
“If nothing suppresses competition, progress will continue forever” – J.B. Clark
Background Information:
Born: January 26, 1847, Location: Providence, Rhode Island
Died: March 21, 1938, Location: New York, New York
J. B. Clark received his schooling at Brown University which he joined for couple of years but then relocated to Amherst College, in Massachusetts, and he was awarded his degree at the age of 25.
Clark was an American “neo-classical” economist: the late 17th to mid-19th centuries.
From 1872 to 1875, he went to the University of Zurich in Switzerland
During the same period, he had also attended the University of Heidelberg, where he received some of his remarkable education under “Karl Knies” who was a groundbreaker of the German Historical School, and a German Socialist.
Distinguished for his concept of “marginal productivity” in which he pursued to account for the spreading of income from the domestic output between the owners of the elements of production which are labor and capital, as well as land.
He was an active educator, he was teaching at Carleton, and Amherst colleges where he graduated from, but most of his teaching career was spent Columbia University where he first attended.
His contribution to American Economic Association as the major founder and the president for two years from 1893 to 1895. His ambition and reasons for the establishment of the AEA which was also shared by other two co-founders: “Henry Carter Adams” and “Richard Ely” was to inspire a movement in economic rational thinking in the absence of laissez-faire guidelines.
In addition, he was a managing editor for sixteen years of the “Political Science Quarterly” until 1911
During the same time he was appointed as a chief manager of the division of economics and history of the Carnegie Donation and endowments for International Peace for 12 years.
He was one of the supporters and the creators of the marginality revolution and a challenger to the Institutionalism school of economics
Early in his profession Clark 's work and literatures reproduced his German Socialist education which he received in his prominent trip to Germany, however, it presented him as a solid opponent of capitalism.
His views progressively loosened which he became a great supporter of capitalism during his teaching career at Columbia Unviersity
Later, he turns out to be recognized as an important supporter of the capitalist system.

Main Publications:
Philosophy of Wealth 1886:
Noticeable for his “revolt against the spirit of the old political economy.”
He claimed that individuals were interested as much by their public interests as by their self-centered individual interests.
He consequently banned pure economic competition as a means by which commodities could be justifiably distributed
The Distribution of Wealth 1899 :
Clark established his distinguishing utility concept. He thought that commodities hold within them “bundles of utilities” or packages of utilities; which means that they signify different qualitative measurement of utility.
In this work he also announced his famous “marginal productivity” model by first setting up an academic prototype of perfect, “static” competitive equilibrium without interruption by any alteration.
From this academic prototype he came up with his assumptions on the distribution of the overall national product.
The Control of Trusts written in 1914
In the control of trust, Clark distinguished three things: first capital as such, secondly, centralization and thirdly monopoly.
Distribution as Determined by a Law of Rent, published in 1894
Canpital and its earnings, published in 1888
Essintials of Economic Theory, published in 1907
Some Major Articles that were published in Quarterly Journal of Economics:
The Origin of Interest
Real Issues Concerning Interest

REFERENCES http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bates_ClarkGeorge de Mille, Agnes. http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/clarkjb/clarkjb003.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Clark/clkDW0.html

Early Clark

The early Clark’s economic thought can be seen in his Philosophy of Wealth (1886) which is based on the articles published in the New Englander from 1883 to 1887. Time from 1887 through the publication of Philosophy of Wealth and Capital and Its Earnings in 1888 might be call his early time.
The central theme of Clark’s economics was social justice, especially justice in distribution. He was groping for a new industrial system and new political economy that were different from the present economic system and old traditional laissez- faire economics. His greatest interest was to resolve the economics problem resulting from rise of business combinations and monopolies in the 1870’s
Later Clark

After publication of Philosophy of Wealth, He shifted his stress from corporative system to arbitration and profit-sharing. He wrote for compulsory arbitration in 1889 and claimed necessity of arbitration from 1896 to 1908. On the other hand Christian socialism in U.S. Itself changed partly and produced a group who supported the American Socialist Party representing political socialism. Clark was critical of this, and his Christian socialist stand gradually faded.

References: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Bates_ClarkGeorge de Mille, Agnes. http://socserv2.mcmaster.ca/~econ/ugcm/3ll3/clarkjb/clarkjb003.html http://www.econlib.org/library/Clark/clkDW0.html Early Clark The early Clark’s economic thought can be seen in his Philosophy of Wealth (1886) which is based on the articles published in the New Englander from 1883 to 1887. Time from 1887 through the publication of Philosophy of Wealth and Capital and Its Earnings in 1888 might be call his early time. The central theme of Clark’s economics was social justice, especially justice in distribution. He was groping for a new industrial system and new political economy that were different from the present economic system and old traditional laissez- faire economics. His greatest interest was to resolve the economics problem resulting from rise of business combinations and monopolies in the 1870’s Later Clark After publication of Philosophy of Wealth, He shifted his stress from corporative system to arbitration and profit-sharing. He wrote for compulsory arbitration in 1889 and claimed necessity of arbitration from 1896 to 1908. On the other hand Christian socialism in U.S. Itself changed partly and produced a group who supported the American Socialist Party representing political socialism. Clark was critical of this, and his Christian socialist stand gradually faded.