The rare first edition of this ‘amazingly original’ work by the Irish political economist Mountifort Longfield (1802-1884), ‘which sketches a subjective theory of value and a marginal productivity theory of distribution - all this in 1834, 11 years after the death of Ricardo’ (Blaug). A pleasing example, unsophisticated in the original cloth.
Longfield was the first Whately Professor of Political Economy at Trinity College, Dublin from 1832-36 and although his lectures published during his short tenure attracted little attention at the time, they have since been recognised as containing contributions to economic theory of outstanding originality. ‘Longfield’s merits may be summed up by saying that he overhauled the whole of economic theory and produced a system that would have stood up well in 1890. Among other things, his argument against the labour theory of value is one of the best ever penned … He was one of those who anticipated the essentials of Böhm-Bawerk’s theory (by making the “roundabout” process of production the pivot of his analysis of capital). And he presented a reasonably complete and reasonably correct theory of distribution based upon the marginal productivity principle, not only the marginal cost principle’ (Schumpeter, p. 465).
One of two known issues of the first edition of comparable scarcity with different imprints but identical in all other respects and without established precedence. The other issue bears the imprint of William Curry, jun. and Co. in Dublin and Longman and Co. in London.
Kress, C.3770 [Richard Milliken imprint]; Goldsmiths’, 28434 [William Curry imprint]; Sraffa, 3520 [Richard Millike imprint]; Einaudi, 3498 [William Curry imprint].
