Editing Marginalism (section)

=== Proto-marginalist approaches ===
Perhaps the essence of a notion of diminishing marginal utility can be found in [[Aristotle]]'s [[Politics (Aristotle)|''Politics'']], wherein he writes {{Blockquote|external goods have a limit, like any other instrument, and all things useful are of such a nature that where there is too much of them they must either do harm, or at any rate be of no use<ref>[[Aristotle]], ''Politics'', Bk 7 Chapter 1.</ref>}}

There has been marked disagreement about the development and role of marginal considerations in Aristotle's' value theory.<ref>Soudek, Josef; "Aristotle's Theory of Exchange: An Inquiry into the Origin of Economic Analysis", ''Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society'' v 96 (1952) pp. 45–75.</ref><ref name="kauder">Kauder, Emil; "Genesis of the Marginal Utility Theory from Aristotle to the End of the Eighteenth Century", ''Economic Journal'' v 63 (1953) pp. 638–50.</ref><ref>Gordon, Barry Lewis John; "Aristotle and the Development of Value Theory", ''Quarterly Journal of Economics'' v 78 (1964).</ref><ref name="schumArist">Schumpeter, Joseph Alois; ''History of Economic Analysis'' (1954) Part II Chapter 1 §3.</ref><ref>Meikle, Scott; ''Aristotle's Economic Thought'' (1995) Chapters 1, 2, & 6.</ref>

A great variety of economists concluded that there was ''some'' sort of inter-relationship between utility and rarity that effected economic decisions, and in turn informed the determination of prices.<ref>[[Karl Přibram|Přibram, Karl]]; ''A History of Economic Reasoning'' (1983).</ref>

Eighteenth-century Italian [[Mercantilism|mercantilists]], such as [[Antonio Genovesi]], [[Giammaria Ortes]], [[Pietro Verri]], [[Cesare Beccaria]], and [[Giovanni Rinaldo]], held that value was explained in terms of the general utility and of scarcity, though they did not typically work-out a theory of how these interacted.<ref name="pribramItalMerc">Pribram, Karl; ''A History of Economic Reasoning'' (1983), Chapter 5 "Refined Mercantilism", "Italian Mercantilists".</ref> In ''[[Della Moneta]]'' (1751), Abbé [[Ferdinando Galiani]], a pupil of Genovesi, attempted to explain value as a ratio of two ratios, ''utility'' and ''scarcity'', with the latter component ratio being the ratio of quantity to use.

[[Anne Robert Jacques Turgot]], in ''Réflexions sur la formation et la distribution de richesse'' (1769), held that value derived from the general utility of the class to which a good belonged, from comparison of present and future wants, and from anticipated difficulties in procurement.

Like the Italian mercantilists, [[Étienne Bonnot de Condillac]] saw value as determined by utility associated with the class to which the good belongs, and by estimated scarcity.  In ''De commerce et le gouvernement'' (1776), Condillac emphasized that value is not based upon cost but that costs were paid because of value.

This last point was famously restated by the 19th-century proto-marginalist [[Richard Whately]], who wrote as follows in ''Introductory Lectures on Political Economy'' (1832): {{Blockquote|It is not that pearls fetch a high price because men have dived for them; but on the contrary, men dive for them because they fetch a high price.<ref>Whately, Richard; ''Introductory Lectures on Political Economy, Being part of a course delivered in the Easter term'' (1832).</ref>|sign=|source=}}

Whately's student [[Nassau William Senior]] is noted below as an early marginalist.

[[Frédéric Bastiat]] in chapters V and XI of his ''Economic Harmonies'' (1850) also develops a theory of value as ratio between services that increment utility, rather than between total utility.