Wicksell versus Brisman: A Dispute on Capital between Generations

Abstract

After Wicksell in 1911 had published the second Swedish edition of his Lectures on Political Economy, a debate began in the Ekonomisk Tidskrift between Wicksell and his opponent Sven Brisman. The controversy was mainly about the concept of capital and the rate of interest, but the circumstances around the debate are at least as interesting as the theoretical issues. Wicksell was since long an internationally famous professor, his opponent a young and impetuous docent. Wicksell was a theorist, Brisman was an empiricist. Those facts determined the character of the debate, in which an echo of the conflict between Wicksell and Cassel is also present. On the theoretical level Wicksell now got another opportunity to clarify his concept of capital as saved-up labour and land, while his view on the casual relationship in the theory of interest is not so clear, taking into account his earlier writings.