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Policy Implications of W. S. Jevons's Economic Theory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 June 2009

Rhead S. Bowman
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Extract

Historians of economic thought typically have seen little or no connection between William Stanley Jevons's economic theory and policy issues. Wesley C. Mitchell, for example, suggested that Jevons had little interest in politics and was uncertain on the questions of the day. He was “basically interested in the subject [of economics] as a science and not as a means of bettering economic organization” (Mitchell 1969, pp. 31, 101-2). Mitchell's comments are curious in view of Jevons's extensive writings on public issues. His book, The State in Relation to Labour (1882), is considered a classic on the subject of policy and a rationalization for interventionist government. Jevons's pronouncement that “we can lay down no hard and fast rules, but must treat every case upon its merits” may well have marked the end of the “liberal era of principles,” according to F. A. Hayek (Hutchison 1978, pp. 100-101). Certainly Jevons intended as much.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the History of Economic Thought , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , Fall 1997 , pp. 196 - 221
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1997

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