Working with the papers of John Maurice Clark is not for historians who abhor dirt and disorder. Simply imagine going into an attic and finding the papers of your grandparents dumped shelf by shelf, pile by pile, with or without the social contrivance of filing, and now image the dust of decades has penetrated the recesses of box and folder. And yet there is much interesting stuff for the hardy to be found in the rummage of Clark’s career.
Three items are posted today from J. M. Clark’s course on the foundations of social economics: (i) five pages describing a course project for students to think about an economic constitution for a newly discovered, virgin continent that is 1/10 the scale of the United States which would be colonized by 1/10 of the U.S. population but run as an experiment in economics; (ii) an undated handwritten course bibliography; (iii) an undated typed final examination for the course.
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COURSE DESCRIPTIONS
Economics 109—Foundations of social economics. 3 points Winter Session. Professor J. M. Clark.
M. and W. at 2:10. 401 Fayerweather.
The course pays attention to the nature of man, and of joint organizations which act as economic men; the economic ideal, viewed dynamically; the social meaning of wealth; the institution of exchange; the principles of choice, value, and cost; a functional analysis of production; the basic institutions of control; economic guidance; negotiation and bargaining; the factors of production and the laws of return; the problem of waste.
Economics 110—Dynamics of value and distribution. 3 points Spring Session. Professor J. M. Clark.
M. and W. at 2:10. 401 Fayerweather.
The functions of value and price; the dynamics of supply and demand for commodities and factors of production; the institution of competition; social vs. competitive schemes of distribution; value and expenses of production; expenses and ultimate costs of production; cumulative vs. self-limiting changes; the level of prices; economic rhythms.
Source: Columbia University Bulletin of Information, Thirty-seventh series, No. 28 (June 26, 1937). History, Economics, Public Law, and Social Science. Courses offered by the Faculty of Political Science for Winter and Spring Sessions 1937-1938, p. 27.
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Typed copy of Course Project, Econ 109
Winter Semester 1937
[handwritten note at top of page
“P.P. [per person?] 2-3 Objectives. 4-5 Strategic decisions.”]
Tentative project for Econ. 109.
(May be used as a carry-over in early meetings of 110 this year—Jan.-Feb., 1938)
Specifications for a new economic system.
A new continent, unoccupied and reproducing the area and resources of the U.S. on a one-tenth scale, has been discovered in the Pacific, and recognized as belonging to the U.S. Recognising that our present economic system is unsatisfactory, the Government has decided to use this area as a laboratory experiment in the setting-up of an altered system, starting from scratch with the advantage of hindsight as to the evils of our present system and trying to improve on them. More than one-tenth of our population, including quotas from all walks of life, have signified their willingness to try the experiment and to cooperate loyally in whatever system is selected. We needn’t take Al Capone [Chicago gangster kingpin] if we don’t want him, but we can have Owen Young [founder of RCA, the Young Plan regarding the reduction of German reparations was his namesake], Henry Dennison [important figure in scientific management movements] and others of like complexion if we want them.
This class has been designated as one of a number of groups to draw up and submit proposals, from which a plan for developing the area will ultimately be selected or otherwise made up. There are other groups concerned with religion, education and political government, and there will be interchange between all the groups before their various proposals are knit together. The political-government group is marking time until it finds what kind of a system it will have to devise a government for. There may be other groups set up on health, penology, family and social relations, art and possibly other matters as developments seem to require them.
[Handwritten title insert] First Strategic decision.
We shall use modern scientific and technical methods of production. In departing from the pattern of the existing system, we are free to go all the way to the most complete communism, or to move in the other direction and try to set up a system more genuinely individualistic (and presumably more competitive) than the present one, if we think the chief trouble is that it is not individualistic enough.
Desirable ends, formulated as standards, so far as possible.
“Maximum individual welfare”, including physical and mental health, personalities adjusted to social living, well-rounded exercise of faculties and adequate stimulus thereto, liberty of choice, within limits, barring things demonstrably harmful to individual or society but including choice of occupation, particular forms of recreation and consumption, adequate guidance in the exercise of liberty, possible special stimulation to activities regarded by proper and competent bodies as especially valuable.
More goods, for those who need them most, implying much greater equality of distribution that at present, but not neglecting importance of increasing total. Flat equality, or distribution (of all goods) according to need, debatable. What kinds of goods? Not much more food, not very much more clothing, much more adequate housing, more adequate education, much more adequate health service (but our religious board includes a couple of Christian Scientists!) “More goods” calls for stimuli to efficiency of production in all grades, and liberty to try new processes and new goods. Whole question of bureaucratic morale, of differentiated material rewards varying with performance (or in proportion to commercial worth of superior performance?) of comparative, quasi-competitive or completely competitive tests of performance.
Right to opportunity to work.
Relative stability of rate of production.
Adequate supply of capital to ensure progressive efficiency of production, with future product rationally weighted against present privation.
Rational distribution of family income over time, with balanced provision for old age and emergencies. (This may or may not be tied up with the provision of capital funds, as at present).
National defense, to the extent deemed necessary (We shall assume that it does not call for a totalitarian system.) [Handwritten note: “Can we safely assume that in 1947?]
Strategic decisions.
Scope of consumers’ preference in deciding what goods and services shall be produced. We shall surely let them decide what color wall-paper and furnishings to have, and beyond certain minimum requirements what books to read and what recreations to follow. We may ration some things—if so, what?—but there will be some realm within which we let them have purchasing power which they are free to use as they choose. This will be our money, and goods will have a price, within this realm.
Shall we also let them choose whether to spend or not to spend? The dangers here are two: fluctuations of total spending (including that on capital formation) and excess saving not spent on capital formation. Unless incomes and the feeling of insecurity fluctuate heavily, the first danger is not great. With large concentrated incomes eliminated, the second danger would be practically removed. Fluctuating credit for busing durable consumers’ goods would create more danger; and for industrial investments, more still. Control of credit can be made effective downward, but not very well upward, even if credit is a public monopoly.
As to public services, I shall assume that we keep the present list, with reservations as to poor-relief if the need is changed or other agencies substituted; and that the question is as to additions. The big question is whether we make the main body of production a public service. If we do, it will be for two main reasons: to control inequality of distribution, and to control the relation between the current volume of production and the spendings (consumer and capital) it depends on to take the goods off the market, to the end that utilized production may be limited only by power and willingness to produce, no fall short of that limit as at present.
If we do that, problems arise of means to secure efficiency from workers and managers, source and allotment of capital and possible place and reward for private savings, determination of production programs and of kinds of goods and services to be produced, including new ones, organization of invention and incentives, determination of wages, of prices, of income devoted to free public series, pensions, etc. procedure concerning workers’ choice of occupation and shifting from one to another, selection of workers and treatment of those nobody wants—that’s enough to start with and to give some idea of the sort of thing that would be encountered. How combat the stagnation of bureaucracy, the multiplication of supervisors, the business of passing the buck and finding scapegoats for poor performance (I assume we shouldn’t want the scapegoats shot)? What sort of “social accounting” shall we use?
If we permit private saving, what shall we do about inheritance, and how prevent evasions of our policy.
We can embody the essentials of our plan in a constitution; how shall we provide for amendment? Shall the whole be in the hands of elected officials? If so, will anyone dare to support an opposition ticket? Will dissatisfied elements believe that a reelection was genuine and fair? Will such factors as these lead the system into a dictatorship of force, even if it did not start that way?
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Bibliography for Economics 109
[no date]
Economics 109
Veblen: “The Place of Science in Modern Civilization”
The Theory of Business Enterprise
The Theory of the Leisure Class
The Instinct of Workmanship.
Davenport, H. J. “Economics of Enterprise”
Anderson, B. M. “Social Value”
Cooley, C. H. : “Social Process”
Hobson, J. A. : “Work & Wealth”.
Pigou, A. C.: “Economics of Welfare” or “Wealth & Welfare”
Tugwell, (ed): “The Trend of Economics”.
Boucke, O. F.: Critique of Economics”.
Mill, J. S.: “Principles of Economics”
Essays on “Liberty” and “Utilitarianism”.
Clark, J. B. “The Philosophy of Wealth”.
“Essentials of Economic Theory”.
Dickinson: Motives in Economic Life
Parker, Carleton: The Casual Laborer.
Wicksteed: “The Common Sense of Pol. Econ.”
Watkins: G. P. “Welfare as an Economic Quantity”.
Hoover Committee “Waste in Industry”
Chase, Stuart: The Tragedy of Waste”.
Clark, J.M.: “Social Control of Business”
“Economics of Overhead Costs”.
Ely: “Property & Contract”.
Commons: “Legal Foundations of Capitalism”.
Sidgwick: Principles of Political Economy.”
Tawney: The Acquisitive Society”
Edie: Principles of the New Economics.”
[Day, Clarence] “This Simian World.”
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Economics 109
Final Examination
[undated]
Answer two questions, but not more than one of questions 3-8, inclusive.
- Discuss effects of recent military techniques on problems of the economic organization of a country.
- With respect to equality as a social-economic objective, what does the prevailing American social judgment favor? Note questions of degree of equality or inequality, and questions of different matters in respect of which people may be equal or unequal.
- “Individuals allocate expenditures so as to secure equal marginal utilities from money spent for different things, or to put themselves on a basis of indifference as between different expenditures”. Discuss. If true, why and by what psychological process; if not true, suggest amendments in the light of more realistic psychology.
- If you were founding a new society, what would you do about consumers’ freedom of choice, and why? If you allow such freedom in important degree, consider how far this commits you to other features of the present economic system.
- Discuss the economic importance of the “instinct of workmanship”.
- Compare the theory of “balked dispositions” with the tradition utilitarian treatment of the subjective sacrifices of production.
- Discuss economic significance of intelligence tests, in the light of the question what kind of a population is suitable or unsuitable to a system of private enterprise, either complete or modified.
- Discuss the social productivity of advertising and salesmanship, and compare this problem with the traditional concept of production, as bearing on the social productivity of private enterprise.
- Do the same for the social productivity of “bargaining” activities.
- Discuss the range of possible kinds of agencies available to perform economic functions.
- Would you assume that the attempt to maximize profits (with or without competition) standardizes economic behavior sufficiently to warrant using this assumption as a sufficient basis for deductive theorizing: that is, as furnishing all the basis such theorizing needs to take account of?
- Discuss the meaning of supply schedules or demand schedules, taking account of complexities or difficulties involved.
Source: Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. Papers of John M. Clark. Box 24, Unlabeled Folder.
Image Source: Detail from Columbia University group photo of economics department from the early 1930s. Columbia University Libraries. Manuscript Collections. Columbiana, Department of Economics Collection, Box 9, Folder “Photos”.