Philip Wicksteed
Unitarian minister turned economist (1844–1927) who was converted to economics by reading Progress and Poverty, formalized marginal productivity theory — and carried George's land politics into the Fabian Society, making him the bridge between Georgism and both neoclassical theory and British social
Overview
Philip Henry Wicksteed (1844–1927), Unitarian minister, Dante scholar, and economist, is the wiki's clearest case of George's analytical influence: reading Progress and Poverty drew him into economics, and his Essay on the Co-ordination of the Laws of Distribution (1894) gave marginal productivity theory its first general formalization — the theory Gaffney's account notes George had foreshadowed (essay Ch. 3).[1] Unlike Clark, who used the marginal apparatus to merge land into capital, Wicksteed carried George's land politics into practice — he was instrumental in pressing land taxation on the Fabian Society and, through it, into Liberal politics.[1] Blaug treats his Common Sense of Political Economy (1910) as the era's most lucid statement of the marginal method.[2]
See Also
- Marginal Productivity — the theory he formalized
- John Bates Clark — the rival use of the same apparatus
- Henry George · The Corruption of Economics (book)
Sources
- Mason Gaffney & Fred Harrison, The Corruption of Economics (1994), Gaffney essay Ch. 3 — used for the George-to-Wicksteed conversion, the 1894 Essay's role, and the Fabian land-tax channel (A-claims with book locators; Heavy scan). Book page
- Mark Blaug, Economic Theory in Retrospect (5th ed., 1997) — used for Wicksteed's standing in the marginalist literature (A-claim; provenance-pending scan — see book page). Book page