ABSTRACT
Introduction In at least two recent papers, two eminent economists, Dorfman (1993) and Samuelson (1994), compare Böhm-Bawerk’s (1889) and Fisher’s (1907) contributions to capital theory. Both, somewhat surprisingly, since not many historians of capital theory have done so in recent years, refer to John Rae (1834) as a sort of forerunner of their protagonists even if in a somewhat lukewarm fashion. The protagonists themselves, however, had assigned a much greater role, and status to Rae. The dedication of Fisher’s ([1907] 1982) main work on the subject reads, “To the memory of John Rae who laid the foundations upon which I have endeavoured to build,” and his view remained unchanged after twenty-three years, when he wrote in the Preface of its revised version. “Every essential part of it [his theory] was at least foreshadowed by John Rae in 1834” (emphasis added) (Fisher [1930] 1970: p. ix). And Böhm-Bawerk ([1884] 1959:208) had this to say:
It was on the subject of the theory of capital…that Rae held a number of exceedingly original and remarkable views, and those views exhibit unmistakable similarity to views which were developed about half a century later by Jevons and myself.
