Re-reading Carl Menger’s Grundsätze. A Book That “Cries Out To Be Surpassed”

Heinz Kurz

No CSWP52, Centro Sraffa Working Papers from Centro di Ricerche e Documentazione "Piero Sraffa"

Abstract: The paper reconsiders Menger’s Grundsätze (1871). It recalls, first, that the theory of marginal utility was developed by representatives of the so-called “German Use Value School”; secondly, that Menger’s criticism of the theories of value and distribution of the classical economists is based on severe misunderstandings; third, that his alternative construction is marred with difficulties spotted by Böhm-Bawerk and Wieser; fourth, that relative prices reflect inter alia the substances that “transmigrate” into commodities in the course of production. The Grundsätze are nevertheless a “great” work, because it invites to correct what is problematic in it and develop what is sound.

Keywords: Classical economics; Essentialism; German Use Value School; Imputation problem; In-come distribution; Marginalism; Menger; Carl; Production; Rau; Karl Heinrich; Ricardo; David; Smith; Adam; Subjectivism; Successivism; Value (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A12 B12 B13 B31 D11 D24 D33 D42 D46 D51 D80 N00 O10 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45 pages
Date: 2022-03-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ban, nep-his, nep-hme, nep-hpe and nep-upt
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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