Marginal revolution

Jevons and Menger publish landmark economic treatises

Menger never used the phrase most closely associated with the revolution he is credited with starting: "marginal utility."

Two books, one year, no coordination

William Stanley Jevons published The Theory of Political Economy through Macmillan in London in 1871. Carl Menger separately published Grundsätze der Volkswirthschaftslehre through Wilhelm Braumüller in Vienna the same year.

They were independent same-year publications rather than a coordinated manifesto. The catalogues consulted do not establish a shared day or month, so "simultaneous release" overstates what is known.

Two very different books

Jevons treated utility mathematically and made the "degree of utility" central to exchange value; his first-edition preface announced a challenge to established political economy.

Menger organised his around goods, value, exchange and price, explaining value through the importance of wants dependent on the units of a good available. He avoided Jevons's mathematical programme, and did not use the term "marginal utility" — Friedrich von Wieser later supplied Grenznutzen.

"Initiated" is a retrospective verdict

Calling 1871 the initiation of modern neoclassical economics is an interpretation applied afterwards. Historians commonly date a broader marginalist turn to 1871–1874 and include Léon Walras, and some dispute treating Jevons, Menger and Walras as exponents of one homogeneous revolution.

Marginal and subjective-value arguments also had precursors, among them Hermann Heinrich Gossen and the German subjective-value tradition.

Nor did a movement appear on publication: Jevons later described his book's early reception as discouraging, and Menger's was likewise limited.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 8 sources not yet audited Date disputed

How this was checked

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Date disputed. Sources disagree about when this happened.

What the sources leave uncertain

The publication year of both books is secure, but the consulted catalogues do not establish a shared day or month; “simultaneous release” should be replaced by “published independently in the same year.”
Calling 1871 the initiation of “modern neoclassical economics” is a retrospective interpretation. Historians commonly date a broader marginalist turn to 1871–1874 and include Léon Walras’s work, while some scholars dispute treating Jevons, Menger and Walras as exponents of one homogeneous revolution.