Leon Carroll Marshall (March 15, 1879 – March 1966) was an American economist, Professor of Political Economy and fourth dean of the

Booth School of Business The University of Chicago Booth School of Business (branded as Chicago Booth) is the Postgraduate education, graduate business school of the University of Chicago, a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Founded in ...

from 1909 to 1924, Professor at the Law School of the

Johns Hopkins University The Johns Hopkins University (often abbreviated as Johns Hopkins, Hopkins, or JHU) is a private university, private research university in Baltimore, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1876 based on the European research institution model, J ...

, and Professor at the

American University The American University (AU or American) is a Private university, private University charter#Federal, federally chartered research university in Washington, D.C., United States. Its main campus spans 90-acres (36 ha) on Ward Circle, in the Spri ...

. He is known for his works on our(?) economic organization,

business administration Business administration is the administration of a commercial enterprise. It includes all aspects of overseeing and supervising the business operations of an organization. Overview The administration of a business includes the performance o ...

, curriculum-making in the social studies and the divorce court, as well as his involvement in the Bohemian Grove.

Biography

Born in

Zanesville, Ohio Zanesville is a city in Muskingum County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Located at the confluence of the Licking River (Ohio), Licking and Muskingum River, Muskingum rivers, the city is approximately east of Columbus, Ohio, Columb ...

in 1879, Marshall in 1900 obtained his BA at the

Ohio Wesleyan University Ohio Wesleyan University (abbrevriated OWU) is a private university, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Delaware, Ohio, United States. It was founded in 1842 by Methodist leaders and Ohio Valley, Centra ...

, and in 1902 his MA from

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, Later on in 1918 he obtained his law degree at the

.L. C. Marshall Papers
at american.edu. Accessed Jan. 1, 2014. Marshall started his academic career at the business school of the University of Chicago, the

, where he became Professor of Political Economy and was fourth dean of the business school from 1909 to 1924. Sequentially he moved to the

, where he was professor and director of its Institute of Law from 1928 to 1933. In 1934 Marshall was appointed by President

Franklin D. Roosevelt Franklin Delano Roosevelt (January 30, 1882April 12, 1945), also known as FDR, was the 32nd president of the United States, serving from 1933 until his death in 1945. He is the longest-serving U.S. president, and the only one to have served ...

as member of the

National Labor Board The National Labor Board (NLB) was an independent agency of the United States Government established on August 5, 1933, to handle labor disputes arising under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA). Establishment, structure and procedures Th ...

and of the

National Recovery Administration The National Recovery Administration (NRA) was a prime agency established by U.S. president Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) in 1933. The goal of the administration was to eliminate "cut throat competition" by bringing industry, labor, and governmen ...

to support Roosevelt's

New Deal The New Deal was a series of wide-reaching economic, social, and political reforms enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938, in response to the Great Depression in the United States, Great Depressi ...

policies and the "measure and combat the effects of the

Great Depression The Great Depression was a severe global economic downturn from 1929 to 1939. The period was characterized by high rates of unemployment and poverty, drastic reductions in industrial production and international trade, and widespread bank and ...

." He also became a member of the National Educational Association. From 1936 to 1948 Marshall was Professor of Political Economy at

in Washington, D.C. Marshall wrote several textbooks on Social Studies topics at the secondary school and grade-school level, starting with ''Materials For the Study of Elementary Economics'' in 1913 coauthored with James A. Field (1879–1927) and Chester Whitney Wright (1880–1966).

Work

Marshall came into prominence in the years from 1913 to 1919, when he was involved with professor of Economics James A. Field and the economic historian Chester W. Wright in "attempts to move economics instruction away from the 'rigorous drill in orthodox theory' or the 'straight-jacket of conventional theory' to a method of instruction emphasizing the development of economic institutions, inquiry into current problems and issues, and fostering of creativity and originality (field 1917). To this end, they produced a book of readings to supplement the usual texts (Marshall, Wright, and Field 1913)."Malcolm Rutherford (2011). ''The Institutionalist Movement in American Economics.'' p. 132

''Readings in Industrial Society'', 1918

In 1918 Marshall published his ''Readings in Industrial Society.'' This work had a heavy emphasis on the institutional development of industrial society, the money economy and financial organization, machine industry, the wage system and the worker, industrial concentration, competition, private property, and social control." The work contained reading from founders of the

institutional economics Institutional economics focuses on understanding the role of the Sociocultural evolution, evolutionary process and the role of institutions in shaping Economy, economic Human behavior, behavior. Its original focus lay in Thorstein Veblen's instin ...

such as

Thorstein Veblen Thorstein Bunde Veblen (; July 30, 1857 – August 3, 1929) was an American Economics, economist and Sociology, sociologist who, during his lifetime, emerged as a well-known Criticism of capitalism, critic of capitalism. In his best-known book ...

Wesley Clair Mitchell Wesley Clair Mitchell (August 5, 1874 – October 29, 1948) was an American economist known for his empirical work on business cycles and for guiding the National Bureau of Economic Research in its first decades. Mitchell was referred to as Thor ...

Walton H. Hamilton Walton Hale Hamilton (October 30, 1881 – October 27, 1958) was an American law professor who taught at Yale Law School (1928–1948). In 1919, Hamilton coined the term "institutional economics". Life and work Born in Tennessee, Hamilton recei ...

, Harold G. Moulton, Robert F. Hoxie, John M. Clark,

Edwin Cannan Edwin Cannan (3 February 1861 – 8 April 1935) was a British economist and historian of economic thought. He taught at the London School of Economics from 1895 to 1926. Biography Edwin Cannan was the younger son of David Alexander Cannan and a ...

, and

John A. Hobson John Atkinson Hobson (6 July 1858 – 1 April 1940) was an English economist and social scientist. Hobson is best known for his writing on imperialism, which influenced Vladimir Lenin, and his theory of underconsumption. His principal and e ...

. He also reprinted diagrams from the work of

Henry Rogers Seager Henry Rogers Seager (July 21, 1870 – August 23, 1930, Kiev, Soviet Union) was an American economist, and Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University, who served as president of the American Association for Labor Legislation. Inspired ...

, picturing the economic production and distribution from 1904, and

Paul Nystrom Paul Henry Nystrom (January 25, 1878 – August 17, 1969) was an American economist, and professor of marketing at Columbia University. He is most known as pioneer in marketing, and for his ''The Economics of Retailing'' (1915) and his ''Economic ...

, picturing the channels of distribution for various lines of goods from 1915. Leon Ardzrooni, known as "Veblen's most faithful disciple", reviewed the book for ''

Political Science Quarterly ''Political Science Quarterly'' is an American double blind peer-reviewed academic journal covering government, politics, and policy, published since 1886 by the Academy of Political Science. Its editor-in-chief is Robert Y. Shapiro (Columbia ...

'', and introduced the work as follows:

Clarence Edwin Ayres Clarence Edwin Ayres (May 6, 1891 – July 24, 1972) was the principal thinker in the Texas school of institutional economics during the middle of the 20th century. Life Ayres was born in Lowell, Massachusetts, the son of a Baptist minister. He g ...

explicitly regarded "Marshall's book as a contribution to the institutional type of economics."

''Our economic organization'', 1921

In 1921 Marshall and Leverett S. Lyon (1885–1959) published their "Our economic organization." The main purpose of this book in the field of elementary economics is to present in systematic fashion the structure of economic society under the spur of competition.Everett W. Goodhue.
Reviewed Work: Our Economic Organization by Leon C. Marshall, Leverett S. Lyon
, in: ''The American Economic Review'', Vol. 11, No. 4 (Dec., 1921), pp. 663-665. The treatment is necessarily brief on account of the large number of topics to be covered, and also on account of the requirements of an elementary text book. The approach is functional. The authors stated in its preface the purpose is to present economic organization in its functional aspect, to show in some detail not so much what the organization is as how it operates. And more even specific "it is a study of the devices which exist in industrial society, primarily in terms of their activities, and, quite secondarily, in terms of their structures."

Economic organization compared to machine; a process approach to economics

In a 1921 review of the work ''The American Economic Review'', by Everett Walton Goodhue (1878–1940s), Professor of Sociology and Economics at

Colgate University Colgate University is a Private university, private college in Hamilton, New York, United States. The Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college was founded in 1819 as the Baptist Education Society of the State of New York ...

,New York (State). Legislature. Senate (1910). ''Documents of the Senate of the State of New York.'' p. 925 Goodhue explained, that this work compares the economic organization to machine, and introduces a process approach (or systems approach) to economics. Goodhue (1921) explained. The complete work is illustrated with over 100 illustrations; tables, schemes, pictures, drawings, maps, graphs, block diagrams, tree diagrams,

classification Classification is the activity of assigning objects to some pre-existing classes or categories. This is distinct from the task of establishing the classes themselves (for example through cluster analysis). Examples include diagnostic tests, identif ...

and

organization chart An organizational chart, also called organigram, organogram, or organizational breakdown structure (OBS), is a diagram that shows the structure of an organization and the relationships and relative ranks of its parts and positions/jobs. The ter ...

s, presenting a mix of empirical and theoretical data. The process approach is recognizable in the visualization of some specific economic phenomena in diagrams, such as the diagram of gratifying wants (see image). Goodhue (1921) further explained, that the book at the outset rather assumes human wants and the goods to gratify those wants. Its interest lies in the field of processes. The aim was to start the student in elementary economics with a study of our want gratifying machine, to show him how this machine has come to be, and how it serves its purpose in apportioning our social resources, viz:

labor power Labour power (; ) is the capacity to work, a key concept used by Karl Marx in his critique of capitalist political economy. Marx distinguished between the capacity to do the work, i.e. labour power, and the physical act of working, i.e. labour ...

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

, acquired knowledge and

natural resources Natural resources are resources that are drawn from nature and used with few modifications. This includes the sources of valued characteristics such as commercial and industrial use, aesthetic value, scientific interest, and cultural value. ...

to the production and sale of goods. Although this approach to economics in its time was somewhat new and rather unorthodox, nevertheless there was much to be said in its favor, according to Goodhue (1921): * It serves at the outset to develop an interest in economics in the mind of the student, a thing much to be desired. * It introduces the student to something with which he is a bit familiar, instead of very early in the course dropping him down into the midst of an elusive exposition of

marginal utility Marginal utility, in mainstream economics, describes the change in ''utility'' (pleasure or satisfaction resulting from the consumption) of one unit of a good or service. Marginal utility can be positive, negative, or zero. Negative marginal utilit ...

and marginal cost. * In describing for the student the existing system of economic organization it better prepares him to grasp the difficulties of terminology and theory on which the organization is based. There is no attempt to expound principles. All that is left to be taken up at a later point in the course. Those who have taught elementary economics will appreciate the difficulty of interesting and holding the students when they are plunged at the outset into the midst of the complexities of utility, value, and prices. This book goes far to solve that most difficult problem of arousing student interest in the course. It was considered eminently practical, readable, suggestive, and as such merits consideration.

Topics discussed in the book

The topics discussed in the book are in the main those of Professor Marshall's more pretentious work ''Readings in Industrial Society.'' The first two chapters on human wants and social resources aim to show the reasons for any form of economic organization. Then follow six chapters on English industrial history which, as the authors state, "are not 'historical' in any orthodox sense of the term. They are a somewhat more extended view of the problem at issue." The remainder of the book is taken up with a functionalized description of the economic organization of the United States. There are four chapters on specialization, two on machine industry, three on business organization, three on the province of the enterpriser, two each on money and financial organization and the utilization of natural and human resources, and one on planning, guiding, and controlling.

Reception

A 1921 review of this work by Goodhue, states that: And furthermore:

Selected publications

* Field, James Alfred; Marshall, Leon Carroll; Wright, Chester Whitney.
Materials For the Study of Elementary Economics
', University of Chicago Press, 1913. * Judd, Charles Hubbard, and Leon Carroll Marshall.
Lessons in community and national life. Series B, for the first class of the high school and the upper grades of the elementary school
'' United States. Bureau of Education; United States. Food and Drug Administration, 1918. * Marshall, Leon Carroll,
Readings in industrial society; a study in the structure and functioning of modern economic organization
'' Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 1920. * Leon C. Marshall and Leverett S. Lyon.
Our economic organization
'' New York : Te Macmillan Company, 1921. * Marshall, Leon Carroll,
Business administration
'' Chicago, Ill., The University of Chicago press, 1921. * Marshall, Leon Carroll. ''The story of human progress.'' The Macmillan company, 1925. * Marshall, L. C., May, G., Marquard, E. L., & Reticker. ''The Divorce Court.'' Johns Hopkins Press, 1932. * Marshall, Leon Carroll, and Rachel Marshall Goetz. ''Curriculum-making in the Social Studies.'' C. Scribner's sons, 1936.

References

;Attribution

This article incorporates public domain material from the 1921 review by Everett W. Goodhue.

External links

*
L. C. Marshall Papers
at American University {{DEFAULTSORT:Marshall, Leon Carroll 1879 births 1966 deaths American business theorists Ohio Wesleyan University alumni Harvard University alumni University of Chicago faculty Johns Hopkins University faculty American University faculty People from Zanesville, Ohio Economists from Ohio Journal of Political Economy editors