Marginalism

The marginal utility school is one of the early seventies of the 19th century in England, Austria and Switzerland almost simultaneously again arisen direction theory of economics, which puts the concept of utility in the center. It aims at solving the classical value paradox by the microeconomic marginal principle (also marginal principle) applies to the benefit of a good. With this principle in the business decision-making theory, which is derived directly from the principle of economic efficiency and is the standard way of looking at economic relationships, it is primarily to changes. Not be considered absolute benefit or average benefits, but those resulting from an act smallest ( marginal ) benefit changes. Mathematically, the marginal principle is based on the partial differentials of the cost or utility functions, differentiated by use or consumption quantities. The marginal utility school is closely associated with liberalism and represents the value of a thing as something fundamentally subjective ( " subjective theory of value "), which differs from individual to individual, and is the rival, relevant, especially in the Marxist labor theory of value against ( "objective theory of value " ), under which the value of goods ( not to be confused with the" use value " according to Marx, the other side or point of view of a commodity ) from the for the production and more precisely: ( no results in labor force) to reproduce expended socially necessary labor; that is ultimately - abstract - measured in working hours; namely in the time required on average a manufacturing company under socially necessary conditions to produce a commodity. This implies in the Marxist labor theory of value the real exchange / sale / export, etc. ( exchange value ). In the logic of the objective theory of value, there is no value without exchange. The use value - a term introduced by Karl Marx term - roughly equivalent to the concept of utility and marginal utility by HH Gossen, Carl Menger, and Léon Walras. For Marx, use- value is (in terms of benefit to the ( average ) buyer) in the first prerequisite is that value created, can be reproduced. The price varies according to the objective theory of value depending on supply and demand to the abstract value, ie deviates from the normal case of it. The marginal principle was originally developed from the German economist Johann Heinrich von Thünen, who applied the differential calculus on the economics first and the first solution of the classical value paradox delivered. The French economist Antoine Augustin Cournot was the principle as a basis for the development of the price-demand function and the determination of the gain maximum of a range monopoly ( Cournot point ), while the German economist Hermann Heinrich Gossen it to the study of need satisfaction and thus to the development of Gossen's laws used.

Until about the First World War, the marginal utility of schools whose considerations trigger the " marginalist revolution " were, as in economic theory are prevalent in modern economics are the more advanced considerations of essential importance.

Basic Principles on the theoretical substantiation of the various marginal benefit schools were already some years earlier formulated by Hermann Heinrich Gossen in Gossen's laws. The central concept of marginal utility is to be understood as the utility of the last covers the demand and the available unit of a good, the value of a commodity is thus determined by the subjective appreciation of his most recent unit ( " unit limit ").

The different schools

• The Austrian marginal utility school is seen as a starting point and an important part of the Austrian School. Influential people were Carl Menger, Eugen Bohm Bawerk of Friedrich von Wieser, Joseph Schumpeter and in the context of a more developed recent Austrian marginal utility school Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich August von Hayek.

• Influenced by the Austrian school, the so-called Swedish school to Knut Wicksell and Erik Lindahl was Robert.

• The Lausanne School of Léon Walras particular, emphasizes the mathematical method and the mathematical nature of the studies. The derived and closely related theory of acts of choice are Vilfredo Pareto, Irving Fisher and Eugene Slutsky and Heinrich von Stackelberg and Paul A. Samuelson Act.
• The Anglo- American School (also Cambridge School ) with William Stanley Jevons and Alfred Marshall transmits the marginal utility principle to the area of ​​production and developed the marginal productivity theory.