LECTURES ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY

BY

KNUT WICKSELL

TRANSLATED FROM THE SWEDISH BY

E. CLASSEN

AND EDITED WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY

LIONEL ROBBINS

Professor of Economics in the University of London

VOLUME ONE

GENERAL THEORY

AUGUSTUS M. KELLEY • PUBLISHERS
FAIRFIELD 1977

First edition 1934
 (London: George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., 1934)

Reprinted 1977 by

AUGUSTUS M. KELLEY • PUBLISHERS

Fairfield, New Jersey 07006
By arrangement with Routledge & Kegan Paul Ltd.

Library of Congress Cataloged.

The original printing of this title as follows:

Wicksell, Knut, 1851–1926.

Johan Gustaf Knut Wicksell, the author of these lectures, is an economist of outstanding achievement whose work has not yet received in English-speaking countries the attention it deserves. In Scandinavia where he taught, and in Central Europe and Italy where he has long been read, his influence has already been extensive and important. But, in other parts, even at the time of his death in 1926, he was probably less known than any other economist of commensurate rank. In recent years, however, largely as a result of the writings of Professor Hayek and Mr. J. M.

The first edition of this book was a very limited one, for I did not wish to deprive myself of the opportunity of publishing a new edition and of availing myself of the improvements which experience and expert criticism might suggest. Unfortunately, very little criticism, either public or private, has reached me; but during the ten years or more in which I have been teaching I have naturally discovered various defects, which in this edition I have endeavoured to correct.

__________

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The three works which, appearing almost simultaneously but quite independently, put forward for the first time the main features of the modern theory of value are Carl Menger’s Grundsätze der Volkswirtschaftslehre1 (published after his death in a new and enlarged edition), Stanley Jevons’ Theory of Political Economy,

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—There still exists no exhaustive presentation of this subject on modern lines; at least, not in an elementary form. Walras in his Éléments once and for all correctly formulated the solution to the problems of production, distribution, and exchange as a whole, but his treatment of the economic function of capital is hardly satisfactory.

BIBLIOGRAPHY.—The literature on this subject is very meagre. Among earlier writers there is virtually only H. von Mangoldt (Volkswirtschaftslehre), and among recent writers, Böhm-Bawerk (Positive Theorie des Kapitals), who have devoted detailed attention to the accumulation of capital. Karl Marx, Das Kapital, vol. i, section 7, Der Akkumulationsprocess des Kapitals, also deserves attention, despite his bias and exaggeration. Compare also Wagner, Grundlegung, part ii, vol. iii.

1.

Reprints of Economic Classics

LECTURES ON
POLITICAL ECONOMY

VOLUME II: MONEY