Capital, Interest, and Rent: Essays in the Theory of Distribution

06/15/1897 Frank A. Fetter

Frank Fetter of Princeton University was one of the great American Austrians, and perhaps the most lucid defender of the “pure time preference” theory of interest in the history of economic ideas.

Rothbard learned from him, and then collected his best work into a single volume that works as a reader on the Austrian theory of capital and interest. If we are tempted to think of the Austrian perspective as a tiny minority within the profession, this volume shows that the situation has always been more complex. Fetter was not an Austrian from beginning to end, but on this topic, no one wrote with more conviction and explanatory power.

The English is beautiful, and logic is rigorous. With this reprint, Fetter again has a voice.

No content found

Meet the Author

Frank A. Fetter

Frank Albert Fetter was the leader in the United States of the early Austrian school of economics. Fetter is largely remembered for his views on business “monopoly” and for a unified and consistent theory of distribution that explained the relationship among capital, interest, and rent.

Born in rural Indiana, Fetter was graduated from the University of Indiana in 1891. After earning a master’s degree at Cornell University, Fetter pursued his studies abroad and received a doctorate in economics in 1894 from the University of Halle in Germany. Fetter then taught successively at Cornell, Indiana, and Stanford universities. He returned to Cornell as professor of political economy and finance (1901-1911) and terminated his academic career at Princeton University (1911-31), where he also served as chairman of the department of economics.

Frank A. Fetter, Chapter 20: Business Price Practices and Social Price Policies

03/31/2017 Articles of Interest Frank A. Fetter

Competition as a social price policy The political organization and legal institutions of all nations, in their treatment of private property and the rights of citizens, involve various social price...

Frank A. Fetter, Chapter 19: Cost-Prices, Product-Prices, and Profits

03/30/2017 Articles of Interest Frank A. Fetter

The roundabout or technological process “Production” is the general term for the natural and artificial processes by which indirect goods (or uses) are combined and advanced one or more stages toward...

Frank A. Fetter, Chapter 18: Markets and Prices

03/29/2017 Articles of Interest Frank A. Fetter

Primitive forms of trade Trading is so familiar a sight to us today that it is hard to realize how recently it began in human history. Adam Smith declared that men had “a natural propensity to truck...

View Frank A. Fetter bio and works

References

Mission, Kansas: Sheed, Andrews, and McMeel, 1978. Edited with an introduction by Murray Rothbard. Print on Demand available.

What is the Mises Institute?

The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.

Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.

Become a Member