This study provides a contribution to the quest for an understanding of the origins, driving force and rise to predominance of neoclassicism in economics. Neo-classicism is perceived to be an emanation from the reigning capitalist system - not merely its explanation but its product. The period 1870-1914 covered the rise to predominance of neoclassicism and it has become one of the new leading areas of study in the field of the history of economic thought. The argument of the present volume is applicable to a variety of formulations of the central problem of neoclassical economics which include the subjective marginal utility theory of the 1870s and beyond; the economics of Alfred Marshall; the work of 20th-century writers working in the tradition or mould established by Marshall and Leon Walras; the Samuelsonian neoclassical synthesis of microeconomic price and resource allocation theory, and Keynesian macroeconomics.
First published in 1990, this unique explanation of the rise of neoclassical economics views social change as an engine promoting change in theory. It attempts to develop a theory of the origins, consolidation and rise to dominance of the neoclassical school of thought. In so doing, it addresses the contest between the labour and utility theories of value; both are placed in historical context, and reasons are offered for the relative success of each in particular historical periods. It is argued that the eventual dominance of neoclassicism, a theory based on the social changes then taking place, resulted not from its scientific superiority but from its non-social perspective which ignores the social order upon which it depends.