The Theory of Marginal Productivity: Sources, Significance, And Social Function

Nineteenth century bourgeois economists, as we know, devoted particular attention to the development of three variants of the nonlabor theory of value: the theory of productivity of "production factors" (the most prominent representative of which was the French economist J. B. Say), the theory of sacrifice (consistently championed by N. Senior and J. Cairnes in England and by F. Bastiat in France), and the theory of marginal utility (a prominent part in its creation and development was played by the Englishman W. Jevons, by the Austrian economists C. Menger, F. Wieser, and E. Böhm-Bawerk, and by the Frenchman L. Walras). Despite all their differences, these three variants of the bourgeois theory of value linked price to some single foundation. Their principal task was to demonstrate a greater or lesser chain of interdependences through which value (in the form of productive contributions by production factors, sacrifices by their owners, or subjective marginal utilities) determines prices.