ABSTRACT
Nassau William Senior and John Ramsay McCulloch were the principal exponents of the wage-fund theory. There are two paragraphs in J. S. Mill on the wage-fund theory, but the theory plays no vital part in his system. Thornton was the economist who made Mill recant on this point. The wage-fund theory never played a very important part in the doctrines of any economists except with respect to one issue where it seemed to be a plausible answer. The wage rate time the number of laborers should equal the subsistence fund. The extensive margin consists in working the additional labor on no-rent land and in using it on no-rent instruments other than land. Rent changes because wage rates change. The profitable margin of cultivation depends on what it is necessary to pay for the factors of production. According to John Bates Clark, specific productivity means that to each agent goes his share of production.
