弗朗西斯·沃尔克 发表评论(0) 编辑词条

　　弗朗西斯·沃尔克（Francis Amasa Walker,1840年7月2日- 1897年1月5日）出生于美国马萨诸塞州，19世纪后期美国著名经济学家，教育家。曾任美国人口普查局总监，麻省理工学院第三任校长、美国统计学会会长、美国经济学会会长、耶鲁大学教授等职。他在南北战争时期曾任联邦陆军准将。

　　弗朗西斯·沃尔克奖章(The Francis A. Walker Medal)由美国经济协会于1947年设立，它以美国早期经济学家弗朗西斯·沃尔克（Francis Amasa Walker）名字命名，每五年颁发一次，用于表彰毕生致力于经济学研究且取得重大成就的经济学家，或者在沃尔克奖章评比期间对经济学发展作出杰出贡献且尚在世的美国经济学家。但随着1969年举世瞩目的诺贝尔经济学奖创立，作为经济学领域荣誉的沃尔克奖章略显多余，它于1981年停止颁发。

　　Francis Amasa Walker (July 2, 1840 – January 5, 1897)American soldier and economist, born in Boston, Massachusetts, on the 2nd of July 1840. His father, Amasa Walker, was also a distinguished economist, who, retiring from commercial life in 1840, lectured on political economy in Oberlin College from 1842 to 1848, was examiner in the same subject at Harvard from 1853 to 1860, and lecturer at Amherst from 1859 to 1869. He was a delegate to the first international peace congress in London 1843, and in 1849 to the peace congress in Paris. He was secretary of state of Massachusetts from 1851 to 1853 and a representative in Congress 1862-63. His principal work, The Science of Wealth, attained great popularity as a textbook. Amasa's son, Francis Walker, graduated at Amherst College in 1860, studied law, and fought in the Northern army during the whole of the Civil War of 1861-65, rising from the rank of sergeant-major to that of brevet brigadier-general of volunteers -- awarded him at the request of General Winfield Scott Hancock.

　　As a soldier he excelled in analysis of the position and strength of the enemy. In 1864 he was captured and detained for a time in the famous Libby Prison, Richmond.

　　After the war he became editorial writer on the Springfield (Massachusetts) Republican, and in 1869 was made chief of the government bureau of statistics. He was superintendent of the ninth and tenth censuses (those of 1870 and 1880), and (1871-72) commissioner of Indian affairs.

　　From 1873 to his death his work was educational, first as professor (1873-81) of political economy in the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale, and then as president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston. While superintendent of the census he increased the scope and accuracy of the records; and at MIT he enlarged the resources and numbers of the institution, which had 302 students when he assumed the presidency and 1198 at his death.

　　In other fields he promoted common-school education (especially in manual training), the Boston park system, and the work of the public library, and took an active part in the discussion of monetary, economic, statistical and other public questions, holding many offices of honor and responsibility. As an author he wrote on governmental treatment of the Indians, The Wages Question (1876), Money (1878), Land and its Rent (1883) and general political economy (1883 and 1884), besides producing monographs on the life of General Hancock (1884) and the history of his own Second Army Corps (1886). As an economist, from the time of the appearance of his book on the subject, he so effectively combated the old theory of the "wage-fund" as to lead to its abandonment or material modification by American students; while in his writings on finance, from 1878 to the end of his life, he advocated international bimetallism, without, however, seeking to justify any one nation in the attempt to maintain parity between gold and silver. A rollection of posthumously published Discussions in Education (1899) was made up of essays and addresses prepared after his taking the presidency of MIT; their most noteworthy argument is that chemistry, physics and the other sciences promote a more exact and more serviceable mental training than metaphysics or rhetoric. Walker's general tendency was towards a rational conservatism. On the question of rent he called himself a "Ricardian of the Ricardians." To his Wages Question is due in great part the conception formed by English students of the place and functions of the employer in modern industrial economics. A remarkable feature of his writings is his treatment of economic tendencies not as mere abstractions, but as facts making for the happiness or misery of living men. General Walker died in Boston on the 5th of January 1897.

　　Francis Amasa Walker was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on July 2, 1840, into the family of distinguished economist and politician Amasa Walker. His father inevitably had great influence on his son’s life, particularly in his interest for law and economics. Walker graduated from Amherst College in 1860, where he studied law.

　　With the beginning of the American Civil War in 1861, Walker joined the Northern army. Walker was particularly skillful in analyzing the enemy troop strength and their position. He showed himself to be a great tactician, and soon rose from the rank of sergeant-major to that of brevet brigadier general of volunteers. The rank was awarded to him at the personal request of General Winfield Scott Hancock. He was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville, and captured at Ream's Station, where he was sent to the famous Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia. His health seriously deteriorated and after the war he left army service.

　　Walker then worked as editor of the Springfield, Massachusetts ‘‘Republican,’’ and chief of the government bureau of statistics. He supervised both the ninth (1870) and tenth (1880) census. He also served as U.S. commissioner of Indian Affairs from 1871 to 1872.

　　In the 1870s, Walker turned entirely to academic work. From 1872 to 1880 he was professor of political economy at the Sheffield Scientific School at Yale. In 1878, he represented the United States at the Monetary Conference in Paris, and from 1885-1892 he served as the first president of the American Economic Association. He was also president of the American Statistical Association from 1883 to 1897.

　　From 1881 to his death, he was president of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He contributed toward increasing the resources and numbers of the institution. During his tenancy at MIT, the number of students increased from 302, when he started as president, to 1198, when he died. He also worked on promotion of general school education and actively participated in debates on monetary and other government issues.

　　Walker wrote numerous books and publications, among others: The Wages Question (1876), Money (1878), International Bimetallism (1896), and Political Economy (1884).

　　Walker stayed at MIT until his death in Boston on January 5, 1897. The Walker Memorial, a students' clubhouse, and one of the MIT buildings on the Charles River, was dedicated in 1916 in his honor.

　　Walker was a prolific writer, especially on topics in economics, and is regarded as an original and powerful thinker. He tried to establish economics as a scientific discipline, and used statistics as a tool in economic study. His ideas can be classified as Neoclassical, with a strong influence of American Institutionalism. As such, Walker represents the definitive split from classical economics.

　　One of the Walker’s most important contributions to economic theory is his theory of wages. With his 1876 book The Wages Question, he demolished the old Classical “wages-fund” theory. He also restructured the Ricardian theory of rent and proposed a theory of distribution that became a foundation for later marginal productivity theory of distribution. He supplemented the trinity of land, capital, and labor, or in terms of distribution, of rent, interest, and wages, with a new entity—management and the earnings of management:

Under free and full competition, the successful employers of labor would earn a remuneration which would be exactly measured, in the case of each man, by the amount of wealth which he could produce, with a given application of labor and capital, over and above what would be produced by employers of the lowest industrial, or no-profits, grade, making use of the same amounts of labor and capital, just as rent measures the surplus of the produce of the better lands over and above what would be produced by the same application of labor and capital to the least productive lands which contribute to the supply of the market, lands which themselves bear no rent. (Quarterly Journal of Economics April, 1887)

　　Walker was a great proponent of capitalist society:

　　At every step of its progress capital follows one law. It arises solely out of saving. It stands always for self-denial and abstinence" with interest “as the reward of abstinence." (First Lessons in Political Economy 1889)

He saw industrialization as beneficial for the society and advocated for entrepreneurship. Walker argued that entrepreneur profit functions as their wages, and thus he disregarded Marxist notions of class struggle based on the parasitic nature of entrepreneurship. As working people worked for wages, so do entrepreneurs. Profits, then, are an added increment of management, secured by foresight and business skill; and since they flow solely from the entrepreneur, they belong to him alone and no portion may be justly claimed for rent, interest, or wages:

　　It appears that the gains of the employer are not taken from the earnings of the laboring class, but measure the difference in production between the commonplace or bad, and the able, and shrewd, and strong management of business. (Political Economy 1888).

　　Walker was also interested in monetary issues, advocating bimetallism. He did not, however, seek to justify any one nation in the attempt to maintain parity between gold and silver.

　　In his later career, Walker became more conservative in his stands, an apologist of the Gilded Age, and staunch critic of Henry George, socialists, and populists. He was especially harsh on the question of immigration. He believed that immigrants negatively influence the “native” population, as with the greater influx of immigrants the “quality of the general population deteriorates.” His views were typical for his time, when Darwinian notions of racial inequality placed the Anglo-Saxon race above all others. Walker was particularly inspired by the work of American sociologist Edward A. Ross, who prophesized the extinction of the white race if government did not react.

　　Walker also observed that the “native” American family size was decreasing, and sought to explain it in sociological and economic terms. According to him, as the result of the increasing number of immigrants coming to work for lower wages, Americans become less willing to have large families, fearing for the future of their children. Walker thus proposed a restricted immigration policy, believing it would have a beneficial effect on the U.S. population. The issue of immigration became a matter of public debate in the early 1910s and 1920s heightening racial and class tensions, remaining an active problem throughout the twentieth century.

　　Francis A. Walker's work The Wages Question gave the final blow to the old "wages-fund" theory of wages, and as such laid the foundation for John Bates Clark's descriptions of the marginal products of labor and capital. Walker’s interest in the nature of management and his explicit categorization of the corporation’s profit into wages, rent, and profits, was foundational to Frank Hyneman Knight's work.

• Walker, Francis A. [1874] 2006. The Indian Question. Ann Arbor: Scholarly Publishing Office, University of Michigan Library.

• Walker, Francis A. 1876. The Wages Question. Macmillan & Co.

• Walker, Francis A. [1878] 2001. Money. Adamant Media Corporation.

• Walker, Francis A. 1883. American agriculture (Census report). Government Printing Office.

• Walker, Francis A. 1883. Money in its Relation to Trade and Industry. H. Holt and Co.

• Walker, Francis A. [1887] 1985. History of the Second Army Corps in the Army of the Potomac. Butternut Press.

• Walker, Francis A. 1888. Political Economy, 3rd edition. Macmillan and Co.

• Walker, Francis A. 1889. First lessons in political economy. H. Holt and Co.

• Walker, Francis A. 1891. Hancock in the war of the rebellion. Press of G.J. Little & Co.

• Walker, Francis A. [1894] 1987. General Hancock. Olde Soldier Books Inc.

• Walker, Francis A. 1895. The Making of the Nation. C. Scribner's Sons.

• Walker, Francis A. [1896] 2001. International Bimetallism. Honolulu: University Press of the Pacific.