Joseph Massie

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Joseph Massie († November 1, 1784 in London ) was a British political economist who stood out with some works on interest , money , taxes , tariffs , foreign and colonial trade , national debt , distribution of wealth and poverty .

Almost nothing is known about Massie's person and life. Apparently he was reasonably wealthy and had an extensive library. It was lost after his death, but the inventory has been partially preserved and provides a fairly precise overview of authors and topics in British social science literature between the 16th and 18th centuries.

Massie was one of the first authors of modern times to deal with the quantitative and qualitative determination of social classes and tried, among other things, to determine the distribution of income and wealth in Great Britain. He distinguished six levels; He saw the narrower and actual upper class (category 1) in 310 families who owned the most extensive property (goods between 10,000 and 20,000 acres , together with categories 2 and 3 more than half of the total usable land), the completely destitute poverty population (Category 6) he attributed 40% of the country's inhabitants.

Karl Marx , Theories of Added Value , 1956

Marx came across Massie during the preparatory work on Capital and commented on his anonymously published work An Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest in 1750 , in which Massie objected to Locke 's view that the amount of interest determines the amount of money (see theories about added value , MEW Volume 26.1). Marxist historians of science saw in Massie a “link between Petty and North on the one hand and Smith on the other hand” and attested him “remarkably mature theoretical insights”.

Fonts

  • An Essay on the Governing Causes of the Natural Rate of Interest; wherein the Sentiments of Sir William Petty and Mr. Locke, on that Head, are considered. London 1750.
  • The proposal, commonly called Sir Matthew Decker's scheme, for one general tax upon houses, laid open; and shewed to be a deep concerted project to traduce the wisdom of the legislature; disquiet the minds of the people; and ruin the trade and manufacturies of Great Britain. London 1757.
  • A Representation Concerning the Knowledge of Commerce as a National Concern; Pointing out the Proper Means of Promoting such Knowledge in this Kingdom. London 1760.
  • A Free and Equal Parliament for England. London 1780.

literature

  • Peter Mathias: The Social Structure in the Eighteenth Century. A Calculation by Joseph Massie. In: The Economic History Review. 1957/1, pp. 30-45.
  • William Arthur Shaw: Bibliography of the Collection of Books and Tracts on Commerce, Currency, and Poor Law (1557 to 1763). Formed by Joseph Massie. London 1937.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Werner Krause, Karl-Heinz Graupner, Rolf Sieber (eds.): Ökonomenlexikon. Berlin 1989, p. 350.
personal data
SURNAME Massie, Joseph
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British political economist
DATE OF BIRTH 17th century or 18th century
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1784
Place of death London