Biography of Alfred Marshal
Alfred Marshall. The life path and development of ideas Alfred Marshall was born on July 26, his father, William Marshall, served as a cashier in an English bank. They came from a clerical family founded at the end of the XVII century. Alfred was the great -great -granddaughter of the Monk William Marshall, a half -legendary, powerful addition of a parish priest. Alfred's great -grandfather, Rev.
John Marshall, director of a secondary school in exeter, was married to Mary Houshri, daughter of the assistant abbot and canon of the church in exeter and aunt of the rector of the college in the end. Alfred's father was a harsh man, very firm and insightful, educated in the spirit of the strictest Protestant religion; He has preserved his inherent despotic character until the end of his life.
The nearest object of despotism William Marshall was his family, and his wife was the most affordable victim. Heredity is a powerful power, and Alfred Marshall could not completely overcome the influence of a paternal character. The despotic attitude to the female floor from childhood fought in him with deep love and a sense of admiration that he experienced for his wife, as well as with the devotion of the environment that tied him with the problems of the formation and liberation of women with close ties.
At the age of nine, Alfred Marshall was sent to the Merchant Taylor school, for which Alfred's father, referring to his abilities, asked and received from the director of the English bank f. With his love for his son, combined with a harsh handling of him, William Marshall resembled James Mill. He forced the boy with him to carry out school tasks, often in Hebrew, up to 11 pm.
Dermer, the fellow practitioner of Alfred and the head of the class at the Merchant Taylor school, recalls that Alfred was small, pale, poorly dressed, looked overwork, he had a nickname “candle”; He participated little in boyish games, was fond of solving chess problems, was very restrained in establishing friendly ties. Having entered the college of St. John, Alfred Marshall realized his ambitious aspirations.
In the city, there is no evidence of Marshall’s relationships with the most outstanding contemporaries, but soon he became a member of a small unofficial discussion society, known as Grout-Clab. It was during this period and under the influence of discussions in Grout-Klab that a fracture in the spiritual development of Marshall came. His desire to study physics was, according to his own words, "he was suppressed by a sudden awakening of a deep interest in the philosophical foundations of knowledge, especially in connection with theology." I believe that Marshall's career has just for the period that historians of public thought recognize the decisive moment in the departure of the philosophical world of England, or at least Cambridge, from the Christian dogma.
In Henry Sidzhuik, he recognized “thirty -nine positions” - thirty -nine dogmas of the Anglican religion - as a condition for joining the academic fraternity and was engaged in the fact that he had given the second -time in Hebrew and prepared lectures on the acts of the apostles. Mill did not write anything that clearly testified to the departure from religious beliefs learned from childhood.
Around this time, Leslie Stefen was an Anglican priest, James Ward - a non -conformist priest, Alfred Marshall - a candidate for the assignment of a dignity, U, K. Clifford held a high church post. But already in the city of Sijuik he refused membership in the scientific council of the Trinity College, "in order to free himself from obligations to the church." Soon, none of the listed persons could not be considered Christians.
Nevertheless, Marshall, like Sijuik, was very far from to speak from the “anti -religious” positions. He approved the principles of Christian morality, Christian ideals and Christian motives. In his works there is nothing that at any extent humiliated religion. Meanwhile, in the city of these works they pushed philosophical thought to new paths, turned metaphysics to agnosticism and distracted everyone from dead ends in philosophical studies.
Metaphysical agnosticism, evolutionary progress, and the only concept of utilitarian ethics, which has survived from the previous generation - all that was combined - directed young minds to new ways of research. Therefore, Marshall turned from metaphysics to ethics. It seems to me that it would be correct to say that Marshall never deviated from the utilitarian ideas that prevailed among the economists of the generation preceding him.
But it is important to note that he interpreted all these problems with great caution, and in this regard, he greatly surpassed Sidzhuik and was fundamentally different from Jevons. For Marshall, the solution of economic problems was not expressed in the application of hedonistic calculations, but served as a preliminary condition for the realization of the highest abilities of a person, almost regardless of what we mean by the concept of “higher”.The economist can argue - and this is enough for the goals set for him - that "the study of the causes of poverty is simultaneously a study of the causes of degradation of a large part of humanity." Accordingly, the possibility of progress "to a large extent depends on the facts and conclusions that are in competence with economic science, and this is the main and higher purpose of economic research." This remains fair, despite the fact that progress also “partially depends on the moral and political capabilities of human nature, and the economist does not have special means to identify these human qualities.
He has to do the same as others, that is, to go into guesses. ” Marshall’s transition to the study of the problems of Economics was also characterized by him himself in the preserved manuscript, conceived and written approximately in the city Should the possibility of real life be reduced only to a few? The "philosophy of history" of Hegel had a great influence on Marshall.
He also met the works of German economists. Finally, his career was facilitated by Dr. Bateson, the head of the college of St. John, who convinced the scientific council to introduce a special course of lectures on ethics, which was instructed to read Marshall. Soon he finally took up economic science, although he temporarily conducted brief courses in some sections of ethics - in logic and according to Bentam's teachings.
Before completing the description of the first period of his career, when he was not an economist yet, we will briefly describe his general life views, which he had already formed then. In the role of a preacher and a confessor for people, he did not much exceed other his own kind. But as a scientist, in his field of knowledge, he occupied the first place for a hundred years.
Nevertheless, it was precisely his first hypostasis that he himself gave preference. But in a sense, the versatility of his nature was a pure advantage. The study of economic science "Economics", it would seem, does not require any exceptional, extraordinary abilities. Is it not an intellectual “Economics” is not a very easy discipline compared to the highest sections of philosophy and pure science?
However, good or at least competent economists are extremely rare. He must have a huge amount of knowledge in various fields and combine talents that are rarely combined in one person. He must - to a certain extent - at the same time be a mathematician, historian, state -owned, philosopher. He must understand the language of signs, symbols and be able to express his concepts and concepts with words.
He must be able to make out in a private common one, at the same time keep in mind both abstract and concrete. He must study the present in the light of the past in the name of foresight. It should be purposeful and objective at the same time, impartial and incorruptible, like an artist, but at the same time sometimes close to real life as a politician. To a greater extent, although not completely, this ideal combination of qualities was inherent in Marshall.
But mainly his multilateral education and various inclinations endowed him with the most important and fundamental talents necessary for the economist - he was both an outstanding connoisseur of history and mathematics, a skilled master in the knowledge of the private and general, transient and eternal. For nine years, Marshall was a graduate student and teacher of St. John College, formulated the foundations of his teaching there.
A little later, becoming a member of the Eranus group, he established ties with the Sidzhuik, Vienna, Fouset, Henry Jackson and other leaders of the first stage of emancipation in Cambridge. All these years, he spent almost all the summer holidays in the Alps alone. Marshall spent four months in the United States. At Harvard and Ilian universities, he had long conversations with scientific economists and many meetings with prominent citizens.
But he saw his main task in “studying the problem of protectionist policy in the“ new ”country.” A trip to the United States made a deep impression on him, which influenced all his further work. He said that he was taught to see things there in their quantitative ratio and that he managed to make an idea of the upcoming superiority of the United States, to identify its causes and predict the forms that it would accept.
To the city of members of the University College Council in Bristol included Dr. Jouett from Bolleyol College and prof. Henry Smith. Vera Jouett in Alfred Marshall strongly strengthened in long evening conversations after meetings of the University College Council, and in G, he invited Marshall to take Toynbee's place in the Council of Bolleyol College and replace it as a political economy teacher for a group of candidates in officials of the government apparatus of India.
Marshall's career in Oxford was short -term, but successful.In some cases, he adequately participated in public discussions with Henry George and others, and at the university he took a prominent place. However, in November, Fousett died, and in January G. Marshall returned to Cambridge as a professor of political economy. The beginning of a serious study by the Marshall of Economic Theory refers to G.
Meanwhile, not a single part of his works was presented to the general public in the proper edition before G., however, he did not hold his ideas to himself, but generously shared them, giving lectures and talking with friends and students. Marshall began a serious study of economic science in the city of drawing attention to the chronology. Mill [the Russian translation called “Fundamentals of Political Economy”, M.
Marshall translated quite a lot of Ricardo's provisions into the language of mathematics. At the same time, his attention was attracted by the new economic concepts of Rosher and other German economists, as well as Marx, Lassal and other specialists. But, in his opinion, the analytical methods used by agoric economists did not always turn out to be strict enough to justify their confidence that the reasons with which they explained economic processes are the real causes of these processes.
In addition, it seemed to him that the socialists underestimate the difficulties of solving the problems they consider and make too hasty conclusions about the possibility of destroying private property to get rid of the shortcomings and vices of human nature. On the one hand, he set himself the goal of studying the most general methods of functioning of each of the main sectors of the economy, and on the other, to establish contacts with the leaders of trade unions, cooperatives and other workers.
However, realizing that the study of the practical life and labor of people will not bring specific results for many years, he decided to fill this time by writing a separate monograph or a special treatise on foreign trade. He proceeded from the fact that this will be the first of a series of monographs on individual economic problems. He always believed that this was the best routine of work, but by the power of circumstances his plans were violated and almost overturned.
He really wrote the first version of the monograph on foreign trade, and in G. then he fell ill as seriously that for a while he was clearly unable to do any hard work. He later considered that the forces would already allow him to process his graphic illustrations of economic problems. Although prof. Valras approximately in the city Therefore, he began with the determination of their necessary restrictions and the conditions of their application, and as a result he wrote the main content of the fifth book of the Principles of Economic Science.