Menger, among the founders of marginalism, was the least mathematical and the one most interested in individual subjective valuations. These characteristics allowed for the development, by his successors, of what has become known as the Austrian School of economic theory. Among their notable...

This paper examines the nexus between the state and civil society in order to explain how the state distinguishes itself from the latter and what is the historic basis for the state’s emergence. This discussion lays the basis for an examination of the general problem of coercion in society,...

Aristotle was among the first thinkers to appreciate the difference between the use value and exchange value of the object of an economic exchange. He drew not simply economic but, more profoundly, ethical conclusions from this distinction. In this he was followed by Aquinas who distinguished...

This paper uses as its theoretical starting point the concept of the firm as a nexus of contracts. It examines the full range of contracts which go into forming this nexus: those formally negotiated, those adopted by custom or practice, and those imposed as legal defaults. The concept of...

This paper is comprised of the greater part of Chapter 2 of my doctoral thesis at SMC University. It approaches Social Choice Theory as a distinctively different way of examining economic activity, one that more closely corresponds to the way in which economic actors organize activity in the...

This paper examines the marginal utility as a theory of value in comparison with the theories which preceded it. It compares in detail the utility theory with the predominant theory of value of classical economics, a cost theory which saw labor as the ultimate source of value. By introducing a...

This paper seeks to examine the extent to which economic calculation can be done and under what circumstances it can be said to produce optimal benefits. The question has considerable practical importance as economic greater calculability is related to reduced risk and uncertainty and...

It is the basic proposition of this paper that the problem with marginal cost theory (Coase, 1946) cannot be adequately addressed within the framework of neo-classical economics. The innumerable products and services, which are available on the market, are not provided because the cost of...

Modern Human Resource systems compensate employees with a complicated array of wages and benefits which normally have similar features from one firm to another. This paper examines the economic basis for these common features. Three factors are isolated and discussed. The first is the overall...

The Social Determinants of WagesBy Richard Stomper, PhDAbstractEconomists generally define the market wage in terms of the Marginal Rate of Productivity (MRP), or, more precisely, the MRP averaged over the economy for similar labor. Purely market mechanisms furnish an MRP for each type of labor....