Sergio Nistic\u00f2<\/p>\n
January, 2016<\/p>\n
Abstract: <\/strong>Hermann Heinrich Gossen (1810-1858) \u2014 a civil servant who, in 1854, published at his expense the book Entwickelung der Gesetze des menschlichen Verkehrs und der daraus flie\u00dfenden Regeln f\u00fcr menschliches Handeln \u2014 has traditionally been considered a forerunner of the neoclassical theory of consumption based on the law of diminishing marginal utility. JEL codes: B13; D01<\/p>\n Keywords: Gossen, Marginalist consumption Theory; Time. <\/p>\n
\nIt is only with the long-awaited publication, in 1983, of the English translation of Gossen\u2019s book, that his editor, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, started to see in The Laws of Human Relations and the Rules of Human Action Derived Therefrom the roots of a wholly different theory of consumption in which the flow of calendar time plays a crucial and non-trivial role.
\nBy going through the works of Jevons, Menger and Walras, the paper argues that the logical and theoretical connection between Gossen\u2019s approach to consumption choices and the marginalist school is unwarranted. Theoretical connections, if any, can be found between Gossen and the classical economists on the one hand and the English \u2018liberal\u2019 tradition of John Stuart Mill and J.M. Keynes on the other.<\/p>\n