Alfred Marshall’s Principles and Industry and Trade: Two Books or One? Marshall and the Joint Stock Company

John K. Whitaker

Chapter 8 in The Economics of Alfred Marshall, 2003, pp 137-157 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract There is a well-marked and well-recognized tension in Marshall’s thought between evolutionary and equilibrium modes of analysis. His observation that ‘The Mecca of the economist is economic biology rather than economic dynamics’ is frequently quoted, yet the precise goals he had in mind, and the extent to which he was able to pursue them, still remain quite vague.1 His Principles certainly emphasizes at various points the importance of environment in shaping and reshaping over time the attitudes, abilities and skills of individuals as parents, citizens, workers and businessmen. This moulding takes place through the influences of home, workplace, educational institutions, national culture, and the general character of national economic life, the last two being in turn gradually transformed by collective experience.2 A distinctive biological aura also attaches to Marshall’s ideas on external economies and the closely related idea of ‘industrial areas’, where there is a stress on symbiotic interdependence, gradually induced differentiation of function, and increasing specialization.

Keywords: Small Firm; Large Firm; Private Firm; Limited Liability; Joint Stock Company (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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DOI: 10.1007/978-0-230-59963-5_8

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