HEARN, William Edward.

£875 · Offered by Peter Harrington · No longer available

Plutology: First edition, first issue; sheets were also sent to England, and published with a Macmillan cancel title page dated 1864.William Hearn (1826-1888) was born in Ireland, educated at Trinity College Dublin, and in 1854 was appointed professor of political economy at the University of Melbourne. He is best remembered for the present work; "Plutology explains increasing wealth as a result of the competitive exchange of services. Competition is held to have three general results. It is: beneficent, since prices reflect the minimum cost of procuring a service; just, because recompense is in proportion to merit; and equalizing, since no recompense permanently reflects the effects of chance. As an 'unfailing rule', the pursuit of self-interest means services are produced in 'order of their social importance'. Competition results in a natural social order, ordained by providence, in which the principles of Darwin's natural selection are applied to industry" (M. White in The New Palgrave).Marshall and Edgeworth bestowed high praise on Plutology. Marshall wrote that the work "is at once simple and profound: it affords an admirable example of the way in which detailed analysis may be applied to afford a training of a very high order for the young, and to give them an intelligent acquaintance with the economic conditions of life, without forcing upon them any particular solution of those more difficult problems on which they are not yet able to form an independent judgement" (P

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