The concept of marginal utility arose as rejection of the labor theory of value that had previously been espoused by neoclassical economists. Economists such as Adam Smith taught that the classical labor theory of value argued that the value – or utility – of a commodity was determined by three important factors that went into a product’s creation: the amount of labor that went into producing it, the effort required of the labor, and/or the amount of labor expected of others in exchange of the product. With the turn of the 19th century, this economic theory was challenged by other schools of thought that believed that there were many ignored factors that determined the utility of a product, mainly the marginal utility theorists.
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The creators of neoclassical economics differentiated from other schools of economics in their understanding of what determines the utility of a commodity in the market. At the height of the Industrial Revolution, the market place was understood in terms of classical economic theory. In his text The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith explained that the labour theory of value ruled that the value of a product was linked to the “the toil and trouble of acquiring it.” The value of an item was determined by the costs and effort invested in producing it. As the intensification of industrialization started settling down, a new breed of economists began to interpret what influenced value from a different perspective. Neoclassical economists started moving away from classical economists views of the market from the macro-level, and diverted more attention to the micro-level. For the creators of neoclassical economics, the most important determiner of utility of a product was not in any concrete value in and of itself, but value was mainly determined by consumer’s own perception. |
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