- •A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.
- •Frank A. Fetter, Capital, Interest, and Rent [1897]
- •The Online Library of Liberty Collection
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- •Table of Contents
- •PREFACE
- •Introduction
- •BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
- •Part 1
- •The Theory of Capital
- •Review of F. W. Taussig, Wages and Capital: An Examination of the Wages Fund Doctrine
- •Recent Discussion of the Capital Concept
- •BÖHM-BAWERK
- •J. B. CLARK
- •Irving Fisher.
- •PRIVATE AND SOCIAL CAPITAL: AN ILLOGICAL DISTINCTION
- •CAPITAL AS PRODUCT: THE LABOR-VALUE FALLACY
- •A RESTATEMENT OF THE CAPITAL CONCEPT.
- •NOTES
- •The Next Decade of Economic Theory
- •EPOCH OF THE UTILITY VALUE DISCUSSION.
- •SOME RESULTS OF THE VALUE DISCUSSION.
- •THE CHANGING VIEW OF THE FACTOR CAPITAL.
- •THE CHANGING CONCEPT OF RENT.
- •THE PRACTICAL NEED OF NEW CONCEPTS.
- •STAGES OF INDUSTRIAL DEVELOPMENT AND CORRESPONDING CAPITAL CONCEPTS.
- •THE SCARCITY FACTOR THEN AND NOW.
- •SOME PROPOSITIONS.
- •RESTATEMENT OF THE OBJECTS OF THIS PAPER.
- •Review of Böhm-Bawerk, Capital und Capitalzins
- •Review of Böhm-Bawerk, Positive Theorie des Capitals
- •The Nature of Capital and Income
- •NOTES
- •Are Savings Income? —Discussion
- •Clark's Reformulation of the Capital Concept
- •STATEMENT OF CLARK'S DOCTRINE
- •POSSIBLE SOURCES; THE AMERICAN TRADITION
- •TRACES OF GERMAN ECONOMIC PHILOSOPHY
- •EFFECTS OF THE SINGLE TAX AGITATION
- •THE MORE CONSERVATIVE VIEWS
- •MARSHALL'S ECLECTIC CAPITAL CONCEPT
- •THE YALE ECONOMISTS
- •OTHER REPRESENTATIVE OPINIONS
- •CLARK'S MESSAGE STILL VITAL
- •NOTES
- •Capital
- •Reformulation of the Concepts of Capital and Income in Economics and Accounting
- •NOTES
- •Part 2:
- •THE THEORY OF INTEREST
- •The “Roundabout Process” in the Interest Theory
- •THE NATURE OF THE INTEREST PROBLEM.
- •FAILURE OF THE ARGUMENT TO IDENTIFY INCREASE OF CAPITAL AND ROUNDABOUTNESS.
- •FUTILITY OF THE CONCEPT OF AN “AVERAGE PRODUCTION PERIOD.”
- •THE CAPITAL CONCEPT AS THE SOURCE OF ERROR.
- •RELATION OF ROUNDABOUTNESS TO THE OTHER GROUNDS FOR THE HIGHER VALUATION OF PRESENT GOODS.
- •THE WEAKNESS OF PRODUCTIVITY THEORIES.
- •RELATION OF TECHNICAL PRODUCTIVITY TO THEORIES OF INTEREST.
- •NOTES
- •The Relations between Rent and Interest
- •PART I.
- •NEGATIVE CRITICISM OF THE CONVENTIONAL RENT AND INTEREST CONCEPTS
- •PART II.
- •EXCLUSION OF TWO POSSIBLE FORMAL SOLUTIONS OF THE INCONSISTENCIES
- •PART III.
- •POSITIVE SOLUTION OF THE THEORETICAL PROBLEM OF RENT AND INTEREST
- •DISCUSSION
- •NOTES
- •Interest Theories, Old and New
- •PROFESSOR IRVING FISHER AS A PRODUCTIVITY THEORIST
- •ORIGIN OF THE CAPITALIZATION THEORY
- •POSITIVE STATEMENT OF THE CAPITALIZATION THEORY
- •SOME DIFFICULTIES IN FISHER'S IMPATIENCE THEORY
- •THE CAPITAL CONCEPT IN THE INTEREST THEORY
- •THE SAME DIFFICULTIES AGAIN
- •SUMMARY
- •NOTES
- •Capitalization versus Productivity: Rejoinder
- •Interest Theory and Price Movements
- •PART I.
- •HISTORICAL STAGES IN THE CONCEPTION OF THE INTEREST PROBLEM
- •PART II.
- •TIME-VALUATION AND THE CAPITALIZATION THEORY
- •PART III.
- •INTEREST RATES AND SOME PROBLEMS OF GENERAL PRICE CHANGES
- •NOTES
- •PART 3:
- •THE THEORY OF RENT
- •The Passing of the Old Rent Concept
- •THE LAND CONCEPT.
- •EXTENSION AS THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTE OF LAND AND THE BASIS OF RENT.
- •TIME AS THE GROUND OF THE DISTINCTION BETWEEN RENT AND INTEREST.
- •RENT AS A GENERAL SURPLUS.
- •EXAMINATION OF THE DOCTRINE THAT RENT DOES NOT ENTER INTO MONEY COST OF PRODUCTION, PRELIMINARY TO THE STUDY OF QUASI-RENTS.
- •THE NO-COST CONCEPT OF RENT.
- •REVIEW AND CONCLUSION.
- •NOTES
- •Landed Property as an Economic Concept and as a Field for Research— Discussion
- •NOTES
- •Comment on Rent under Increasing Returns
- •Rent
- •BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FRANK ALBERT FETTER
- •BOOKS
- •TESTIMONY
- •ADDRESSES
- •REVIEW ARTICLES
- •ARTICLES
- •BOOK REVIEWS
Online Library of Liberty: Capital, Interest, and Rent
5.
It may be that the hallmark of Frank A. Fetter's approach to economic theory was his “radicalism”—his willingness to discard the entire baggage of lingering Ricardianism. In distribution theory his most important contributions are still too radical to be accepted into the corpus of economic analysis. These are: (1) his eradication of all productivity elements from the theory of interest and his development of a pure timepreference, or capitalization, theory and (2) his eradication of everything pertaining to land, whether it be scarcity or some sort of margin over cost, in the theory of rent, in favor of rent as the “renting out” of a durable good to earn an income per unit time. Guided by Alfred Marshall and by eventual retreats toward the older view by BöhmBawerk and Fisher, microeconomic theory has chosen a more conservative route.
Despite the attention and the enthusiasm accorded to his writings at the time, Fetter's contributions to distribution theory have fallen into neglect and disuse. It is to be hoped that this collection of essays will bring Fetter's contributions and his lucid and systematic economic vision to the attention of contemporary economists.
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE
For a recent appreciation of Fetter's contributions to economic thought, see John Appleby Coughlan, “The Contributions of Frank Albert Fetter (1863–1949) to the Development of Economic Theory” (Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America, 1965). For an early summary of his theoretical system that apparently received Fetter's approval, see Robert F. Hoxie, “Fetter's Theory of Value,” Quarterly Journal of Economics 19 (February 1905): 210–30. Hoxie concluded that Fetter (in his
Principles of Economics: With Applications to Practical Problems [New York: Century Co., 1904]) had created a “system which, for logical consistency, is without precedent; a system through which with clearness there runs one essential chain of thought...and as successive links of which the problems of the value of consumption goods, rents, wages, and profits, the value of productive agents, and interest are successively solved” (ibid., p. 230). General discussions of Fetter's contribution may be found in Joseph Dorfman, The Economic Mind in American Civilization, 5 vols. (New York: Viking Press, 1959), 3:360–65, 385–86; 5:464–79; and Wesley C. Mitchell, Types of Economic Theory: From Mercantilism to Institutionalism, 2 vols. (New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969) 2:251–300. I have included a bibliography of, Fetter's works at the end of this volume.
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