Audiobook · read by volunteers
Principles of Economics, Book 3: On Wants and Their Satisfaction
Alfred Marshall (1842–1924)
Read by Carl Manchester, Mark Nelson, Carmina Sansone, Sibella Denton, icyjumbo (1964-2010) · 6 chapters · 2 h 00
About the book
Why do we want what we want, and how does that shape the market? In Book 3 of Principles of Economics, Alfred Marshall turns from definitions to the heart of demand. He studies human wants in their relation to activities, the way in which desires grow, change and become satisfied, and the gradations of consumers’ demand that lie behind the prices we see. The approach is thoughtful and patient, with examples drawn from daily life, and it laid some of the groundwork for how economics is taught. Six parts, read by five LibriVox volunteers, run for about two hours. If you are curious about the roots of demand theory or about how an influential Victorian economist built his argument, this book offers a clear, approachable and rewarding place to begin.
Introduction
Alfred Marshall, who lived from 1842 to 1924, was a Cambridge economist whose Principles of Economics became the leading textbook of its time. First published in 1890, it grew out of work that he began in 1881 and continued through the following decade. Its plan gradually extended to a two-volume treatise, and the edition recorded here is dated 1920.
Book 3 is titled On Wants and Their Satisfaction. It follows the second book, with its definitions of fundamental notions, and moves to the study of consumption and demand. The chapters recorded include the introductory one, a discussion of wants in relation to activities, a chapter on the gradations of consumers’ demand, and further chapters on the elasticity of wants and on the choice between different uses of the same thing. Marshall holds that human wants are not fixed but develop with activity and with changes in the conditions of life, a view that sets him apart from a purely mechanical account of choice.
As a textbook, the work is built on careful argument and precise terms, and it asks for concentration. Yet it is written in clear and sober prose, and Marshall tries to connect his analysis with everyday experience. For students of economics or the history of ideas, the book shows how some of the basic concepts of demand were first set out in a systematic way.
The recording has six parts, read by five LibriVox volunteers, and lasts about two hours. Today it is worth hearing as a primary text of economic thought and as an accessible entry into the discipline’s foundations.
Public domain
Alfred Marshall died in 1924: the work is in the public domain in Switzerland, more than 70 years after the author’s death.
The LibriVox volunteers dedicated this recording to the public domain.
Sources : LibriVox page · Files at the Internet Archive · Original text