Re: Alfred Marshall -Reply

[Louis-Phillippe Rochon (Louis-Phillippe Rochon) <148756@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Modern use of supply and demand analysis would surely have infuriated
Marshall who, I believe, was not all that keen on such an approach,
especially in its more sophisticated form.  In a letter to A.L.Bowley dated
Feb. 7, 1906, Marshall wrote: " I had a growing feeling in the later years
of my work that a good mathematical theorem dealing with economic
hypotheses was very unlikely to be good economics." (quote on page
775 in the 9th edition of the Principles).

With respect to Marshall's supply and demand analysis, let us not forget
that Marshall was in fact very critical of such tools of analysis.  In
Guillebaud's 9th edition of Marshall's Principles, Marshall launches an all
out attack on those who refuse to question S&D: "When pushed to its
more remote and intricate logical consequences, [S&D] slips away from
the conditions of real life.  Its limitations are so constantly overlooked,
especially by those who approach it from an abstract point of view, that
there is a danger in throwing it into definite form at all" (461).

Louis-Philippe